


The Infinite Extent of Our Relations

by bluesyturtle



Series: The Life Which He Has Imagined [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Deadpool - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Blackouts, Boys Kissing, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Crying, Dissociation, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Guilt, Hurts So Good, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Memories, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Recovered Memories, Returning Home, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, Team Bonding, The Author Regrets Nothing, Training
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-05-25 21:06:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 77,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6210136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluesyturtle/pseuds/bluesyturtle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Guess we’re both gettin’ new beginnings at the same time.”</p><p>“Fitting,” Bucky says, not keen on fighting it. “Seems like that’s the way things are bound to go for us.”</p><p>Steve hums, liking that answer. “I’ll take that. The universe owes us by now, don’t you think?”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky’s free. The courts let him go and maybe huge chunks of the world don’t like it, but there’s nothing they can do to stop him from going home. It doesn't take him long to figure out that <i>home</i> is less of a place and more of a feeling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sam

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry in advance for ytpos, my lovelies. Enjoy the fluff.

Three days into his freedom, Bucky dreams of the Helicarrier. He dreams that he beats the living hell out of Steve and that when they come out of the water together, Steve isn’t breathing. His face is ashen and shiny from the river. The water in his lungs doesn’t trickle back out from his mouth and Bucky tries, _God_ , he does everything he can to save him, but Steve doesn’t come back.

Bucky dreams that he collapses there on the bank next to Steve’s body and that he screams until his soul shakes out of his body. He dreams that it’s still not enough to bring Steve back. He wakes crying and gasping in Matt’s bed, alone in the apartment since Matt left however many hours ago to do his rounds as Daredevil.

Matt’s told Bucky several times already that he can stay as long as he wants. Their arrangement works out fairly well what with Matt spending most of the night out on the streets of Hell’s Kitchen. Bucky has had nightmares every night since he’s been back and Matt hasn’t been there to startle awake at his screaming once. He counts it as a blessing.

The water kicks on in the kitchen just outside Matt’s room and Bucky tenses up before forcing himself to uncoil from the knot he’s twisted himself into. When he quiets down enough to listen, he can hear Matt humming under his breath. Apparently he got in and Bucky didn’t hear him. He sniffles and tries to slow his heartbeat.

A shadow crosses into the doorway, followed a moment later by Matt’s silhouette. He leans against the doorjamb with a glass of water in his hand. His hair’s screwed up from sleep and there’s a bruise across his ribs.

“Bucky?”

It takes some doing speaking around the hitches in his breathing, but he manages to say, “Matt.”

A shiver wracks Bucky’s body and he curls in tighter on himself. He sees Matt nod to himself and raise the water so that Bucky will follow it with his eyes.

“Is it okay if I come in?”

 _It’s your room,_ Bucky thinks wildly, thoughts racing and tears flowing.

Instead of saying that, he gives his permission like Matt’s waiting on him to do. He walks in and places the water on the nightstand, feeling first with his free hand in case Bucky moved anything after he left. Bucky didn’t. He doesn’t move anything in Matt’s apartment without putting it back right where he found it.

“You can sit,” Bucky grits out, wrestling with his nerves until he can sit up himself.

Matt sighs and takes a tentative seat on the edge of the bed by the nightstand. His face always looks so different to Bucky without the barrier of tinted glasses. He scrubs tiredly at his eye, and shame swells in Bucky’s belly and throat. He’s safe here. He’s wanted. These dreams shouldn’t be plaguing him still. They shouldn’t be plaguing the people in his life. It’s not fair.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“I really don’t.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

Matt smiles, weary and sad. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Bucky.”

“I know, but…” He sighs and rests his elbows on his knees, cheeks held in his hands. His face is cold and wet with tears, fingers thrumming with unspent energy. “I know.”

“Hey.” Matt takes the water from the nightstand and offers it to Bucky. “I mean that, okay? You didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve…I used to wake up in tears a lot after the accident. I ever tell you that?”

Bucky blinks, lashes flicking erratically against sticky cheeks. He brushes his fingers over the rim of the glass before extracting it from Matt’s hand. The water cools his throat and provides some distraction from the rest of his body. He watches Matt’s face and taps the side of the glass idly with his metal fingers.

“No, you didn’t.”

Matt ducks his head and folds his knee beneath himself on the bed. Bucky brings his feet in under his knees, takes a long sip of water, and lowers the glass into his lap.

“Back when it first happened, I’d forget that I was blind. I’d wake up and I couldn’t see, and I’d be yelling for my dad before I snapped and put it together. The night I woke up in the hospital was the worst. First thing I hear is the heart monitor, and far as I can tell, I’m alone in the darkness and it hurts and I’m afraid.”

Matt swallows, tips his head, and continues.

“But my dad was there. At first I didn’t know it ‘coz, uh, everything else was so loud and distracting. I could hear and smell everything, and that—it was so overwhelming. I felt consumed by it. And my dad, maybe it’s because he knew what it was like to see in one color, he grabbed my hands and he put ‘em on his face. He said, ‘Feel my face. I’m right here. It’s all right, Matt.’”

Bucky watches Matt’s face; he steals that moment when Matt’s lower lip trembles. He doesn’t look away even though he knows he should.

“And it…it didn’t happen just the one time. I’d always forget in that first minute awake what had happened. Once I calmed down, that moment when everything went dark would play back in my head and it would feel fresh and I’d panic. Every time I got like that, my dad’d let me feel his face so I’d know he was there with me. It helped. I’d struggle to hear him beneath the noise, but he always just kept telling me I was safe.”

Bucky presses his fleshy fingers into the side of the glass and twitches his nose. Matt’s tone is deliberately calm, but there’s a distance to his expression like the pain of his past hasn’t quite subsided. Maybe it never will.

“Your dad sounds like he was a good guy.”

The smile that stretches over Matt’s face plumps his cheeks and accentuates the sheen of tears in his eyes. He says, “He did all that he could.”

A faint tremor breaks his voice, but he doesn’t cry. Maybe he doesn’t want to upset Bucky or maybe his good memories outweigh the bad. Bucky hopes for the latter. He raises the glass to his lips and stops, cataloging the vast improvement to his mood and mindset. Matt tilts his head at Bucky’s stillness and Bucky takes a quick drink.

Stark had said something to him once about children sometimes becoming their fathers, and Bucky decides that in this one way, at least, Matt is wholly his father’s son. Coming to this conclusion, though he has no right to it, warms him. Everything about Matt warms without ever burning.

“I think you’re the best person that I know.”

Matt’s expression opens up with unassuming surprise. He laughs and gives a little shake of his head.

“I just remember how hard it was having to learn to see the world differently.”

“Well, I didn’t get superhuman senses when German scientists lobbed my arm off,” Bucky mumbles, aiming, poorly, for comedic effect.

Taking mercy on him, probably, Matt smiles. “You got a few things. _I_ don’t have a healing factor.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that? Wilson says everyone’s got ‘em these days.”

Matt sputters. At least Bucky wrangled one laugh out of this conversation.

“That, super strength, and impenetrable skin, according to Claire. Guess I really drew the short stick.”

Bucky’s curious about the specificity of those two abilities, but he doesn’t press. He’d rather talk about Claire, and even then, it’s not really a good time to ask Matt how their mutual, off-the-record bone-saw is doing.

Because he occasionally dabbles in Steve’s great-big-idiot penchants for smiling with his whole heart in his eyes, Matt does just that and beams in the general direction of Bucky’s shoulder. And then he yawns huge and Bucky has to turn away to let him have a private moment with it. Matt does so little to shield himself from Bucky—has done the minimum for as long as they’ve known each other—that sometimes he takes it upon himself to _be_ Matt’s shield. 

“Sorry I woke you.”

“Nope. You still did nothing wrong.”

Bucky’s shoulders bunch up defensively. “You never apologized for waking your dad at all hours of the night?”

“I tried to once and it bounced off him like a weak right hook. You know why?”

“Because…” Bucky rubs at his forehead. Sleepiness is starting to tug at him, too. “Because you were nine and he was your dad?”

“Because I was in pain and I needed him.”

_Damn it, Matt._

“Bucky, look, you being here and finding your way: that’s what’s important. That you’re letting us be here with you when everything going on with you right now amounts to a battle of wills is a miracle. Don’t kid yourself, it is.”

Bucky rolls his lips inward and looks down at his hands. “Speaking from experience there, Matt?”

With a rueful laugh, Matt says, “You know that I am. We love you, okay? We honest to God love you.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” Bucky mutters, tears pricking at his eyes, fast and stinging. “Don’t. That’s worse.”

“I know it is. But when you ask yourself _why_ it’s worse, you see how good you’ve got it.”

And Bucky does see. He can put two and two together—even Stark had said so once, had gone so far as to liken Bucky to a calculator. The only reason he’d care about how fiercely and protectively they love him is that he loves them just as fiercely, just as protectively. It’s an enormous responsibility to bear, but it’s so beautiful, too.

He’s in pain and he needs them. They love him.

It’s a lot to take in with the groggy net of drowsiness inching over him, over Matt. He shies away from it, though it’s much too late to take any of it back.

“Here, you can have the bed.”

“Oh, no, the—”

“If you say the couch is fine, I’m actually gonna cry.”

“…I was on the floor.”

Bucky stands and stretches his arms overhead, grateful for the change in subject that Matt doesn’t dispute. “Slightly better than the couch, but I still don’t like taking your bed.”

“You _love_ taking my bed,” Matt retorts, padding out after Bucky into the kitchen.

“Well? Who wouldn’t? It’s the most comfortable thing you own, which is saying something.” He downs the rest of his water and washes the glass out in the sink. “The biggest mystery to _me_ is why your _couch_ is like suede-upholstered rocks.”

Matt snorts. “That’s a new one.”

Bucky hums while drying the glass and sets it back in the cupboard. It fits perfectly in the only visible cup-sized gap, but he checks anyway just to be sure.

“First shelf by the plates?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Okay, go sleep. I’ve got the floor.”

“Bucky, honestly, it’s fine. I don’t mind sharing, even, if you’re dead set on giving me the bed.”

“How can I give you _your_ bed?”

Matt has his hands on his hips and Bucky crosses his arms, defensive for no real reason. He remembers he used to share with Steve, but he’s never told anyone about it. Then, it was to protect Steve; to protect him from the cold and from the world, no matter how unlikely the second was. Now Matt’s offering to protect Bucky from his nightmares. Bucky’s almost inclined to let him.

“The last time I freaked out in my sleep near someone I cared about, I broke his jaw.”

Matt doesn’t falter for a second. “So take the floor in my room. You won’t be able to grab me, but I’ll still be close enough for you to know right away that I’m here.”

It’s four in the morning, and Bucky just wants Matt to have a chance to sleep in, so he agrees. He gathers up the blankets Matt left in the living room and sets up as far away from Matt’s side of the bed as possible, positioning himself next to the wall while Matt’s closest to the window.

His makeshift nest on the floor isn’t the worst thing he’s ever laid out on. The blankets are warm and soft, even if the floor can’t be described as either of those things. It’d be easy enough to fall back asleep, but he doesn’t count on how oddly soothing it is listening to Matt’s steady, relaxed breathing just a few feet away. He can hear it when Matt dozes off, and the predictable psychological effect Matt’s vulnerability has on Bucky is that it unwinds him the rest of the way. He slips back into sleep himself and he doesn’t dream.

Matt asks if his back is okay in the morning and Bucky tells him it’s fine. Sure, it ached for about two seconds, but it quit the minute he got up and moving. They have a quiet breakfast, scrambled eggs for Bucky and avocado toast for Matt. He tells Bucky a story from early on in his friendship with Foggy when he misheard the Spanish _abogados_ for _avocados_.

“Avocados at law, huh?” Bucky teases once they get to the office bright and early the following Monday.

Foggy’s great at telling stories. Bucky’s amusement at Matt’s anecdote just gets Foggy going on a whole list of funny mixups from their college days. They’re hilarious the way he tells them, but the best part about it is watching Karen and Matt crack up. It’s easily Bucky’s favorite morning in seventy years.

The thought depresses him. He keeps it to himself.

Their days happen like this for a week. Bucky’s no good at warming the bench at home— _home_ currently meaning Matt’s apartment—but he’s not ready to venture out on his own yet either. He needs structure until he can get used to the idea of complete independence, and they’re happy enough to provide an outline while he adjusts to civilian life. He doesn’t go with them to the office every day because they need him there. They keep Bucky around for his peace of mind.

The current case they’re working on against the Hydra operatives who busted up New York a year ago would go off without a hitch if he did nothing to help out. As it is, he leaves the apartment with Matt in the morning, sits quietly in Karen’s office while she types and makes phone calls, and walks back with Matt to the apartment at the end of the day. It’s a comfortable routine that expands slowly and carefully by degrees.

Part of it is that it’s difficult not to be near them in some productive capacity after depending on them for human interaction for so long. It’s frightening not to be _meant_ to be anywhere how he was meant to be in prison or meant to be in court a short time ago. Now that he’s free, he’s a drifting satellite with no real purpose but to be helpful to them.

It’s also the least he can do to repay them for saving his hide at trial since they won’t take his money. Higher-up spook types from the government contacted him his second week out to talk backpay, but he has no idea what to do with the money at his disposal if his lawyers—and Weasel—won’t accept a stipend for everything they’ve done for him. They’re plenty capable without him, but he’s a mess in a crowd or on his own. 

He reaches out to his other friends. If he didn’t, he’d feel bad for never cutting them a break.

Weasel sets up times when he’s sure he’ll be home for Bucky to go out to Harlem and see Мурка. Wilson drops by Nelson & Murdock to steal Bucky away for food runs and they walk around New York scoping out what to get the team for lunch. They go clothes shopping together, proving once and for all that Wilson has Bucky’s measurements down by heart, making jeans selection _much_ less frustrating than it might have been.

He goes to Avengers Tower where he and Clint talk for a long time about all the commonplace details of their lives. Clint introduces him to Thor, and Thor grasps his forearm and smiles and says, “Welcome, brother of my brother.”

Bucky absolutely does not get emotional about the gesture, and Thor’s generosity definitely does not make his throat ache. He nods jerkily and mumbles a greeting back at him.

The Maximoff twins come out of the woodwork to peer distrustfully but curiously at them. Wanda stands slightly in front of her brother right about where one would hold a shield. Pietro keeps a protective arm around her back. He looks alert, ready to spring into action. By comparison, her face is pale and there are dark smudges beneath her eyes.

The twins are standing at the far end of the room near an open door when Clint introduces them to Bucky. Pietro nods and Wanda stares, a small change happening in her expression that he isn’t close enough to inspect properly. He doesn’t make any kind of joke about how they act or what they’ve been through. Clearly she’s still shaken by whatever it is that she saw and Pietro has no intention of undermining her fear with forced politesse. Bucky doesn’t mind. He knows how he felt when Matt found him.

More often than not, Stark is nowhere to be found at the tower when Bucky makes his trek over. He and Steve have been tied up in interviews and press conferences ever since Bucky’s release, so they’re usually not around or plain unavailable to visit if they are. 

Sometimes Natasha and Sam go with them to these interviews, but sometimes Bucky sees them at the tower. Once, Bucky walked in on them and Clint teaching Thor monopoly and they waved him over when they saw him. They played for two and half hours, and Bucky was pulling the lead right up until he landed on one of Thor’s pricier properties and then all hope was lost.

He’d noticed Wanda peeking out at them from a cracked door, her presence lost to Thor’s booming shouts of victory and Clint and Sam’s laughter. She and Bucky had locked eyes, and maybe he imagined it, but she didn’t look quite so afraid.

It’s nice balancing his time among a larger pool of friends. He worries less about adding unneeded strain to Karen, Matt, and Foggy when he can count on people outside of just them for support—even if their way of supporting him is to just kick his ass in monopoly. None of them push. They get him out of the house and give him new reasons every day to believe that he’s valued and that he matters to them.

They’re delicate. It helps him, but it would help him to be pushed, too.

Making that decision to let himself be pushed and compromised is his and no one else’s, but he’s learned by now that that doesn’t mean he has to face it alone. Around noon one day at the office, Bucky walks up to the roof and calls Sam.

Steve made it abundantly clear the last time they were all gathered at Matt’s that he and Sam are available to Bucky in a few different capacities. He picks Sam now for his association with the VA. Sam can provide counsel in matters linked to his recovery and give Bucky some kind of heads up as to where to start looking for help now that he feels somewhat settled in this new life.

“Hey, Barnes. You doin’ all right?”

“I’m okay. That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Yeah? I’m listening.”

Bucky studies the skyline and the clouds higher up. Sam’s smiling face lights up the screen when he pulls the cell away from his ear to switch it into his other hand.

“I need help.”

“With anything in particular?”

He bites his cheek, internally chanting the practiced words he’s had lined up for the better part of a week now.

“I wanted to know if you knew of a good psychiatrist.”

“Oh,” Sam answers quietly, not surprised, not eager, just neutral. He pauses and rummages around for something that Bucky can’t decipher just by listening for it. “Yeah, I’ll look into it. You want me to find a doctor in Manhattan? I can reach out to my contacts in D.C., see if there’s anyone good set up in Hell’s Kitchen.”

“I’d appreciate that, yeah.”

A beat of silence trickles between them. Bucky fidgets.

“You sure you’re okay? If you need help right this minute, I can head over. Still set up at the tower, Steve and me. It’s not even a ten minute trip.”

“It’s nothing like that,” he says in what he hopes is a reassuring tone. “I’m just…I need to do more to fix this—myself. I want to get better, but trying to go at it by myself feels irresponsible.”

“Well, I’ll call you back when I get something. You got my word.”

“Thank you, Sam.”

“I’m glad you called me, man.”

He actually sounds touched and Bucky’s face warms at the prospect.

“Steve said I could ask you about this kinda thing.”

“You’re good.” Sam chuckles. “He didn’t steer you wrong.”

Bucky paces on the roof and closes his eyes against the breeze on his face. “How is he?”

“He’s busy. Hasn’t had much of a break since the acquittal. You talk to him lately?”

“We text. It’s hit-and-miss, mostly.”

“I hear you. I’ve barely heard from him at all this week. Guess it’s the cost of being a modern day icon. Want me to tell him anything from you?”

Bucky doesn’t want to heap anymore responsibility on Sam than he already has, so he doesn’t tell him what he’s thinking. He can’t tell anyone that he wants to see Steve all the time but that he doesn’t trust himself to be ready for Steve in that capacity. Most of the time he doesn’t trust himself around anyone in any capacity. That he’s too busy dancing for the media in Bucky’s place to come visit is a convenient distraction from an unpleasant truth: Bucky needs more time.

That’s not to say, by any means, that he’s hoping the wolves keep after Steve. Two weeks _has_ to be the max for how long people deem it decent to demand sound bites and perfect smiles from Captain America.

“He was like this when you were locked up, too, you know.”

“What?”

“Steve,” Sam says, casually fond. “Like his heart was too big for his body. If news broke about developments in your case, he’d be on his feet pacing for the next hour, inconsolable.”

Bucky halts halfway through the track he’s been walking and glares at his feet.

“I get it, man. You have a second shot with your best friend. Waitin’ on the rest of the world to let you take your time back must be driving you crazy.”

“I don’t know,” Bucky mumbles, unwilling to commit to a more serious answer while his head is spinning and his face is so warm. He’s glad he’s hung around with Sam in casual settings before this conversation. It makes it easier to speak from the heart. “I just wish they’d let it be over so we can move on already. It’s cruel, what they’re doing.”

“Yeah, and they know it. I wanna tell you that they’re not waiting on him to take one step out of place so they can tear him down for it, but I can’t. It’s just one of those things that’s got to happen how it happens.”

“Like a high-profile criminal case.”

“Like a high-profile criminal case,” Sam echoes. “If you try to fight it, you make yourself look bad. And once people can say you’re even a little combative, that’s when it all goes to shit.”

“Has it gone to shit?” Bucky asks, a little nervous at the specificity in Sam’s example.

“It got close a few times. Tony usually smooths things over if a question doesn’t go over how it should. Nat’s good for that, too. Next to them, Steve looks like a deer in the headlights.”

“He’s too goddamn close to it.” Bucky rubs his fingers into his forehead. “He _should_ be allowed to leave this nonsense with them.”

He’s about to go off on a rant about exactly everything that pisses him off about this prolonged PR battle that Steve’s been protecting him from when his phone beeps. Steve’s name and his earnest blue eyes appear on the screen when he checks it. Bucky frowns, not expecting this development.

“I gotta go. He’s calling me.”

“Maybe he has good news. I’ll keep you posted on the other thing, Barnes.”

“Thanks. I mean it, Sam.”

“Yeah, I know you do. Go talk to your boy.”

Bucky smirks and takes the call.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

A little winded, Steve says, “Uh, currently stuck in traffic; avoiding responsibility.”

“That doesn’t sound very patriotic of you.”

“Ha-ha.”

“What are the youths of America going to think, Steve?”

Steve huffs like he’s trying not to laugh but doesn’t care to be too convincing about it. Bucky likes teasing him like this. It’s light and familiar and soothes the singed edges of his soul.

“So what’d you do? Light out of a press conference again?”

Steve could only manage a frantic picture message the last time he tried _that_. Bucky saved it on his phone because the damn thing was so hilarious out of context: a blurry photo someone—Stark, Bucky would later find out—took of Steve casually fleeing a crowded room while cameras flashed and people stood up waving after him. The fact that he’s able to call now, even if he is breaking some inane rule of decorum, strikes Bucky as a good thing.

“Yeah, Tony managed to drop an announcement big enough that I was able make a clean break. He’s launching a program that’ll provide veterans with suitable healthcare, and if they need it—”

“Prosthetic limbs,” Bucky supplies. “And that _distracted_ them?”

“They had questions about funding, qualifications, insight into the tech involved. You ought to’ve seen ‘em— _spellbound_. I don’t know when he found the time, but Tony had a speech and a presentation prepared. He wowed the hell out of them. Me, too, if I’m honest.”

_Howard would be proud._

Bucky knows perfectly well that they’re both thinking it but that neither one of them can say it out loud. It’s a sensitive topic. Everything in between ’44 and two years ago is a sensitive topic.

Steve makes a tiny blustery sound into the phone and Bucky smiles in spite of himself. He can see the look Steve would have on his face, gloomy about the eyebrows with a hint of raw defiance twitching in his jaw. It’s odd for Bucky that he can imagine those micro expressions so vividly. There are parts of Steve that are mysterious and unknown to Bucky, but he’s never hungry for these minuscule details.

“Does that mean you’re heading back to Manhattan?”

“Yeah, I thought I might stop by? See how the case is going.”

“Really.”

“Well.” Steve flounders, caught. “I wanted to see you. Wasn’t sure if we were at a point where I could tell you that yet.”

Bucky kicks at a loose pebble in the concrete, irrationally shy and embarrassed. He tries to speak, but his mouth goes dry and the clarity in his mind fuzzes over. The moment passes and Bucky squeezes his eyes shut. Steve clears his throat, barreling on ahead.

“Right. It’s okay. I need to head back to the Tower and check in with Sam anyway. He worries about me jumping out of windows when I go to these things.”

“Steve, what the hell?” Bucky sighs into the tentative silence on Steve’s end and pushes his fingers into his temple. “I swear. We’re gonna have a talk about this reckless streak of yours. I mean…unless, I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t talk like that. Sorry.”

“No, you—I…I like when you nag at me to be safe.” Hurrying, he adds, “I know it’s not like it was before and it doesn’t need to be, but it’s the best kind of feeling to know you’ve got my six. If it makes you uncomfortable, then obviously we can set boundaries, put some distance between us. You just…you do what feels right and I’ll follow you.”

_‘That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I’m following him.’_

Bucky goes back to pacing and pockets his metal hand, watching the sky as he walks. He says, “Sounds a bit backwards from where I’m standing.”

“How do you mean?”

It’s Steve’s diplomatic, I’m-not-afraid-of-anything-not-even-death voice, which can only mean that he’s scared. Bucky’s not trying to worry him. He’s trying to reassure him that he won’t get abandoned again, but there’s no way to communicate the sentiment without being misunderstood. Steve doesn’t look at Bucky leaving him on the riverbank as abandonment. He doesn’t look at his fall from the train as abandonment. 

“Maybe it’s not fair of me to make you scramble after me while I try to piece myself back together again.”

Steve stays quiet for a long time, and Bucky lets him take that time to configure a response. He’s been editing that single statement in his head for months now, fretting about forcing Steve to remain a prisoner with him. Bucky loves Steve like he always has loved Steve and he wants him around while he’s on the mend, but it’s selfish to need him. It’s greedy and weak to ask him to continue to make sacrifices on Bucky’s account. They’ve had permutations of this conversation before.

Each new reminder from someone else about how important his recovery is just drives the point home deeper for Bucky. He can’t stand not being fighting fit, but even worse than his impairment is that he’s dragging Steve down with him.

 _Maybe_ he could justify it before the trial. _Maybe_ he could hide behind the defense that he believed it was their last chance ever to speak in private, but there’s no excuse anymore to exhaust Steve with all his trauma, his demons, or his heavy, heavy heart; to force him to water himself down and hold back around Bucky so that he doesn’t set him off; to pretend he doesn’t want his old friend back as fiercely as he does.

It leaves a bad taste in his mouth to think that Steve might—and should—agree with him, but it’s like Foggy said in court. Bucky has to protect him. Even if it hurts like hell, he can make it hurt less for Steve.

“Do you remember when I came down with scarlet fever?” Steve says, voice gone quiet but edged with steel.

Bucky can see where Steve’s going with this line already. His heart pounds in his ears. “I remember.”

“We hoped it’d run its course, clear in a week’s time; then I got that ear infection. The doctors said meningitis was probably next since I’d been exposed to it once before. I’d never seen you so scared.”

“As I understand it, meningitis is still a pretty big deal,” Bucky protests weakly.

“There was always somethin’ back then. You coulda left me a million times, but you always stayed.”

“Well, I…” _—couldn’t leave you, wouldn’t have even if you begged me to go._

Bucky clears his throat and tries to finish that sentence, but he can’t. He can see why it hadn’t occurred to him to compare his devotion to Steve with Steve’s devotion to him.

Steve couldn’t be blamed for his constitution being what it was and letting him get sick all the time. No matter what happened, he was always too strong to succumb, and that _was_ his doing if contracting various illnesses wasn’t. He didn’t realize that Steve would apply that same mindset to him because Bucky still blames himself for the things that have been done to him. He jerks awake practically every night with the thought that he should have been dead a long time ago and that he wishes he _had_ died in Zola’s lab.

“You saved my life, time and again, and you never asked for anything in return. I’m not gonna make you face this alone now that it’s your turn to need me. But Buck, if it’s something else…if it’s too much for you that I’m here, then you can tell me. I’ll go.”

Bucky wars with himself over how to answer, but he can only tell Steve the truth. He deserves that much if Bucky can’t be strong enough to give him more. It sticks in his throat and comes out as a whisper.

“I don’t want you to go.”

“Then I’ll stay. I want to do right by you, Bucky. If you ever change your mind, I still want to do right by you.”

“Yeah, I know, Steve,” Bucky mumbles, picking up momentum again. “It’s the same for me.”

Steve takes a sharp breath and stays quiet for a few seconds. He sounds fairly composed when he finds his words, saying, “I’m gonna keep reminding you that I’m here for you, okay?”

“Sure.”

“And I may actually stop by the office this week. Nelson and Murdock wanted to go over details for the Hydra case.”

“You’re allowed,” Bucky murmurs. “Maybe I’ll see you before then. I’ve been around the tower lately.”

“I heard.” Steve finally sounds like he’s relaxed again, like he might even be smiling. “Thor’s still high from taking all your Monopoly money. The way he tells it, you’d think he bested you in combat.”

“Didn’t he?”

Steve snorts, a playful, leisurely sound. “You know, today was the last big press conference.”

Bucky doesn’t bother tamping down his relieved string of swears upon hearing it. Steve laughs at him, and it’s such a hearty, jovial sound that Bucky slips briefly into a memory listening to it.

The war was in full swing and the Howling Commandos were in between assignments. Steve had been showing Bucky how to hold the shield while the rest of the guys sat around smoking, playing cards, and hassling Dernier to teach them some curse words in French. Bucky was complaining about the strap being hard to hold onto and made a wisecrack about how it was like the trashcan lid Steve used in that alley behind the movie theater.

He let his guard drop at the sound of that laugh. It was a warm reprieve from the suffering of war and inescapable bad dreams to hear him sound so happy. Even if Bucky came back from the labs different and even if Steve came back from the labs different, he still laughed the same. He always did, enough for both of them.

“I asked Sam for help finding a therapist,” he murmurs, a good minute or so into the silence because he can’t say, _I wanna crawl inside your goddamn laugh and sleep for ten years._

“Guess we’re both gettin’ new beginnings at the same time.”

“Fitting,” Bucky says, not keen on fighting it. “Seems like that’s the way things are bound to go for us.”

Steve hums, liking that answer. “I’ll take that. The universe owes us by now, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. Seein’ how we come as a set, I hope I don’t ruin your shot at good karma.”

“You’ve only ever made my odds better. I’m gonna remind you of that, too.”

“You _say_ that.”

“And I mean it.”

Bucky sighs. “Yeah, you mean it.”

His face warms up, slow and incriminating and too easy to understand. He can’t channel his million racing thoughts into coherent words with Steve.

For all that he can fill in the gaps where Steve stops talking with what he must be thinking, it’s so much harder to fill his own empty spaces. It’s a harsh reminder that he has a clearer handle on Steve’s heart than he does his own mind, and he hates it. He hates that he can plot out all the little things that make Steve who he is, yet it only gets harder for Bucky to navigate the person he himself has become.

“I guess I’ll call you later?”

“Yeah,” Steve tells him, gentle like he’s been. “I’d like that.”

Bucky spends the rest of the day sitting alone on the ledge of the office roof and doesn’t talk to anyone until Karen comes bearing coffee. The cheerful tangerine mug she gives him is hot, so he balances it in his metal palm and carefully blows the steam away.

“Everything going all right?”

Karen hums, the sound of it a little disagreeable. “I gave myself a paper cut.”

She brandishes the injured digit for inspection and he frowns. It’s a nasty cut, deeper than he’d think paper could inflict. Karen frowns, too, but exaggeratedly so. 

“Ow,” he says.

“Uh huh, it’s been a slow day.”

“That’s not a bad thing in my book.”

Karen nods and sips from a gray mug. She sits next to Bucky on the ledge, knees draped over the side that allows her to plant her feet on the roof. The sunset is drawing in close over the tops of the neighboring properties. Golden orange sunbeams make her hair glint like a flame in the chilly afternoon.

“I talked to Sam.”

“Oh? How did that go?”

“He’s gonna help me find a doctor in town, a therapist.” Bucky rubs the back of his neck where his skin is going warm. “I say he’s gonna help, but he’s pretty much doing the finding for me.”

“You had to be the one to decide,” Karen counters softly, resting her hands and the mug in her lap. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re making the right call.”

“It’s worth a hell of a lot.” He holds his mug to his lips and says, “Thanks.”

“Steve called.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah, he was making sure we didn’t need him today. Have you heard? I guess he’s finally out of the spotlight.”

Bucky nods. “He said as much. Called me, too.”

Karen doesn’t ask what they talked about and Bucky falters, on the cusp of telling her everything but then backing away completely. It’s dangerous that he lets himself feel everything so deeply. He used to be better at smoothing over these things, used to be a better bullshitter than current events would support.

On some level, he knows he could still tap the reserves of his personality that made him a good asset, but he has no desire to fool them or to see if he even can anymore. He figures hovering in between architectural tact and stilted, heartfelt intimacy is bound to produce some sort of honest interaction, but mostly he just steps wrong everywhere and forgets how to use his words.

At the end of the business day, Matt breaks away from the herd with the intention of going to the gym. Bucky prefers his choice over Foggy and Karen’s proposal to go bar-hopping. He also picks Matt because he likes walking with him. It’s familiar and harmless, and it’s a gesture of trust each time it happens.

They stop at the apartment for a change of clothes and walk to a nearby boxing gym. Matt tires himself out on a punching bag and Bucky waits, sitting on a bench and looking at Twitter on his phone. Bucky’s dressed for a workout, but once they got in, he’d been content enough to just listen to Matt’s fists connecting with sand, rice, or whatever this gym uses as a filler. After he’s gone through his mutuals’ feeds, he switches over to Instagram and Pinterest.

Weasel had shown him how to work the latter two when they met up last week to jointly fawn over Мурка. As such, there’s a string of new pictures Weasel’s posted on Instagram for Bucky’s benefit. Matt’s doing handstands when Bucky finally gets off his phone, the famed photo of Daredevil, Spiderman, and Deadpool suited up and promoting the Milk Tribute sitting pretty at the front of his mind.

It’s as good a time as any to get in a bit of exercise, so he strips off his hoodie and aimlessly swings at a punching bag until he works up a decent sweat. It shuts his brain off and he thoroughly forgets what he’s doing until Matt’s words trip in his ears, calm and weightless like an echo.

“I used to come here all the time with my dad when I was a kid.”

It takes Bucky a few minutes to come back online, but Matt talks a steady stream of welcome chatter and Bucky listens. Floating along with the gentle cadence of Matt’s voice is not something he has to struggle to do. He can see him on the fringes of his sightline, leaning up against the edge of the boxing ring with his head tipped back and his eyes shut, unobscured by glasses or by a mask. Bucky lets his arms drop to his sides.

“He’d bring me along on the weekends, and I’d read while he trained. I wasn’t allowed to come to the events, but I’d watch ‘em at home on TV. Even after the accident, I’d listen to his fights. It’s funny what you remember about a place. I’ve forgotten the colors and the shapes of a lot of it, but I still remember where the lights hang down from the ceiling or…how high the windows reach, the cracks in the tile. Little things like that.”

Bucky tips his head back, too, fists uncurling and fingers relaxing. He examines the massive drooping lights and the enormous windows. He unsets his jaw and blinks, moving his tongue around in his mouth.

“They’re not so little.” He wakes up a bit more at the smile on Matt’s face. “Pretty gigantic, really.”

“Sounds about right. You ready to head back?”

“Lead the way.”

They follow the routine they’ve since established once they get back to the apartment. Bucky curls up on the floor and Matt gears up for patrol. He tools around on his phone when he can’t sleep right away and scrolls through a plethora of amusing things on Pinterest.

Wilson’s boards are the most intriguing to sift through with titles ranging from ‘dadpool’, which is a mess of colorful dessert recipes, to ‘megahoney thunder god’. Bucky gets about a dozen pins deep into elaborate braids, beards with flowers woven into them, and fashionable, flowing capes before it clicks that Wilson dedicates this board to Thor.

Smirking at his phone, he opens a text to Wilson and paraphrases the board’s tagline: **you really find him very attractive, huh?**

He’s prepared to wait for a response. Matt’s out on patrol, so it stands to reason that the other two-thirds of the Red Team will be out and about already. Bucky turns the phone in his hand and stares up at the ceiling, restless. He wonders if he should call Steve or if he ought to reach out to Rebecca, just to let her hear his voice, but both of those things frighten him at this early stage.

There’s an unseen weight stifling him, telling him that he’s still too dangerous to be at ease with them. At the same time, it’s impossible pressure—a nagging sense that he should be better _now_ and that he will never heal fast enough no matter what pace he attempts to take.

His friends tell him he’s wrong about this. He tries to believe them. Their words of encouragement are uplifting enough, genuine enough. They aren’t the ones holding him back and they never have been.

**Wade (02:14 AM)**  
**look at that bearded face and tell me hes not very attractive**

**Bucky (02:17 AM)**  
**I’m forwarding these texts to Foggy**

**Wade (02:17 AM)**  
**tin man no i thought we were biffles**

He smirks at the made-up word that Wilson described to him in a lengthy text last week. Since he can’t sleep, he gathers up a towel and some fluffier clothes and runs a bath. His phone has unread messages from Wilson on it when he gets back to his nest, much more relaxed after his frankly indulgent bath.

**Wade (02:34 AM)**  
**tin man**

**Wade (02:50 AM)**  
**omg**

**Wade (03:12 AM)**  
**?????**

**Bucky (03:30 AM)**  
**Sorry forgot we were texting**

**Wade (03: 57 AM)**  
**ur so lucky i love u**

Matt comes back to the apartment at about five in the morning and Bucky only half-wakes at his entry, grumbling something in Russian at him that earns a rough chuckle in response. He drifts in between sleep and consciousness, listening for the sounds of Matt dropping noisily into bed. It takes Matt falling asleep for Bucky to nod off. He doesn’t wake until morning.

They’re having oranges and grainy oatmeal for breakfast when Sam calls. Bucky asks Matt if he minds him toggling the speakerphone and Matt shakes his head. He hasn’t told Matt yet that he’s going the therapeutic route, but it isn’t a secret and Karen and Steve have been read in already. Letting Matt in on it over oranges and oatmeal is just convenient.

Plus, having his hands free makes it easier to plunge his thumb between the rind and the fruit while Sam talks. The last one on his list is a Dr. Leonard Samson.

“He comes highly recommended by Bruce, if that helps you make a decision,” Sam tells him.

In his voice, Bucky always hears the confluence of two hard-won variables at play: firm conviction and honest compassion. He’s a lot like Wilson in that respect. With any luck, Sam and everyone else got to see how similar they are while Wilson was with them in Sokovia.

“I wanna try Banner’s guy.”

“All right, Barnes. I’ll text you his contact information.”

“Thanks, Sam.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Matt stirs his oatmeal and doesn’t comment. Bucky pops an orange slice into his mouth, savoring the fresh burst of flavor on his tongue. He likes oranges better than most other fresh fruits they’ve been stocking up on, but Matt likes to get creative with what they eat so that there’s never a deficiency of healthy snacks on hand. His more successful choices include carambola and colorful varieties of squash.

“Are you surprised?” Bucky asks him after he’s finished his orange. 

“In a good way. Sometimes it’s hard to ask for help.”

“I only asked Sam if he’d look into it yesterday. I didn’t know how to tell you without making it into a big thing. Sorry to spring it on you.”

“You’re not springing it on me,” Matt reassures him with a small smile. “I’m glad you’re taking the next step. We support you; we all do. If it ever gets too heavy, you know how to reach us.”

Bucky pinches an orange peel between his fingers and nods to himself. If they hadn’t been here for him this long, he never would have arrived at the decision to seek therapy. Truth is, he didn’t make that choice alone. He made it the day Alder for the Prosecution presented his closing statement to the court. He made it because he’s still afraid of hurting Matt in his sleep and because he’s still afraid of hurting Steve while he’s awake.

They have faith in him and he wants to be worthy of it. He needs to be worthy of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *I’m gonna scramble to get this posted in its entirety before the EMOTIONAL FUCKING HORROR MOVIE that comes to us in May. Might not happen, but I’ll do my best. I do currently have another writing project going on, but finishing this before we are all slain by Civil fucking War is priority. 
> 
> **The series titles are all quotes from Thoreau. 
> 
> EDIT: Lol for some reason I mistyped the title the first time around. I'm not having a good day, apparently.


	2. Wanda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's just trying so hard, man, you feel me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbeta'd because I'm irresponsible.

Wilson goes with Bucky to his first consult with Dr. Samson for two reasons. The first is for emotional support, which Wilson does nothing to shy away from. The second reason is so that Bucky doesn’t get lost and stranded alone in the middle of Greenpoint. 

Since Bucky’s mostly been in Manhattan since he got out of prison, going back to Brooklyn is a strange experience for him. Places that he’s never seen look different. Old neighborhoods he can vividly recall have different emotional cadences to them than what he expects. At times, the only tangible reminder he has that he’s in a new era is Wilson standing firm at his side.

Doc Samson’s practice is in an understated brownstone squeezed in between a florist and a personal trainer. Wilson tells him he looked up the adjacent properties the night before when Bucky asked if he’d go with him, and true to his word, the signs in the neighboring windows prove him right. 

They walk in together about ten minutes early and eyeball the artwork on the walls. The seven paintings are abstract pieces done up in brilliant, clashing colors. No two are even remotely alike. Bucky finds himself drawn to one that looks like two hummingbirds flying into each other. The blue, upright one is oriented on the bottom of the canvas while the red one is contorted above the blue almost like an overturned turtle. 

Wilson studies it from over his shoulder but eventually wanders toward a painting near the closed door at the end of the hall. Bucky glances over to see which one he’s fixated upon. It’s a study in copper and gold slashes. The white fragments caught in the middle of the darker browns have the jagged look of broken glass to them. A few seconds into gazing at it, Bucky hears Wilson muttering to himself.

“…aren’t _pink_ , they’re a dingy gray…well, that time Weas had to dig the brain nuke out, remember? Even _ours_ …sort of like lobster sauce…speakin’ of which, I’m hungry.”

At seven sharp, the door swings open and a man steps out, looking at both of them. He stands a few inches taller than Wilson in a well-fitted suit with his black hair pinned back in braids. His skin is dark and his smile is kind. The shape of it on his mouth, small and testing, instantly reminds Bucky of Dr. Banner. He glances between them.

“Mr. Barnes?”

Bucky steps forward and shakes his hand. “That’s me. Bucky.”

“Dr. Leonard Samson. And who’s this?”

“Wade Wilson, sir. He’s my ride, sort of.”

“Just a friendly shoulder to cry on.” Wilson shakes Samson’s hand. “You know, the good stuff.”

“Pleasure to meet you. Were you planning on joining us today?”

“Uh?” Wilson looks at Bucky. “We hadn’t talked about it.”

“Is that allowed?”

“Some people report feeling more comfortable meeting with a psychiatrist for the first time if they’re with a close friend. Ultimately, it’s up to you.”

“Whaddya think, tin man? You need a wingman in there?”

He figures if he brings Wilson in, he could test Samson’s patience and see whether his calm, unflappable demeanor runs as deep as he suspects. It’s not an outrageous gambit, but to put it into effect without at least warning Wilson beforehand would be a shitty move. Besides, he’s probably better leaving Wilson at his back to guard the entrance points in case they come under attack.

Really, he’s not so paranoid as to think they’ll get accosted here, but it’s tactically sound. It gives him a reason to shelf the idea of bringing Wilson in with him as an uninformed guinea pig.

“I’ll manage, Wilson. Thanks.”

Wilson gives a little salute and Samson turns to indicate the double doors to his right.

“There’s coffee and water in the waiting area for friends and family right through that door. Please help yourself.”

“Shweet!”

Samson waits for Wilson to go through the doors and then waves for Bucky to follow him into a spacious office. Bucky walks ahead while Samson’s closing the door and immediately checks the windows. They look out to a stone patio and high walls on either side, probably to afford the establishments on either side of his a modicum of privacy. Samson’s backyard is longer than it is wide with a table and benches set up by the lefthand wall.

Satisfied that the walls are high enough that no one could jump them unobserved, Bucky shifts his focus to the room itself. The windows are wide and framed with sheer, cream-colored curtains. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves line two walls, hewn from the same dark, polished wood. Shades of brown make up the room’s color scheme. The resultant effect is all-around warmth.

He scans the titles on Samson’s shelves, finding mostly psychology books but also stumbling upon a few literature anthologies and encyclopedias. A framed photo of a wedding ceremony stands isolated on an eye level shelf. Bucky studies it, recognizing Samson on the right side leading four equally sharp-dressed groomsmen beneath a white huppah.

It couldn’t have happened too long ago as Samson looks the same up close as he does in the photo. Even his hairstyle is the same, though now it hangs past his shoulders where it looks to have been much shorter at the time of the ceremony. He’s lost the goatee and filled out a bit more since then.

“My brother’s wedding,” Samson tells him, having migrated from the door to the edge of his desk. “Nice, don’t you think?”

Bucky looks from Samson to the photograph, drawing a blank. The bridesmaids’ dresses keep drawing his eye. They look like princesses in soft pink taffeta lining up to give flowers to their queen, and Samson’s sister-in-law definitely looks the part in her white ruched gown, dark brown hair piled elegantly on her head.

A bit pathetically, he says, “Taffeta’s nice.”

Samson’s biting back a smile when Bucky turns back around. “Would you like to sit?”

Bucky looks around and chooses the dark brown divan. It’s cozy, but he has a hard time settling into it by the time Samson finds a seat across from him on the matching armchair.

“Well, since this is just us getting to know each other, I’ll tell you a little about myself just to give you an idea of who I am. You don’t have to tell me anything unless you want to, but it would help me a lot if you could tell me what you hope to achieve out of coming here. Sound good?”

“Yeah.”

Doc Samson goes through the highlights of his life so far. His father was a psychiatrist but an uncouth one, initially discouraging him from pursuing that career for himself. Samson worked first a psychology professor and then became a licensed psychiatrist. He worked for a time with Dr. Banner in the days before the Hulk and then for a short time following Banner’s exposure, succinctly explaining why Banner would recommend him.

When it’s his turn to speak, his thoughts churn about in his head and bring him back to the wedding photo. He left it in plain sight as a physical snapshot of his life.

“Have you read up on me?”

“I followed your trial extensively. Your history with Captain America and the Howling Commandos is a matter of public record, after all. I threw a party when they acquitted you.”

Bucky smirks at that, at the mildly embarrassed smile Samson’s fighting. He falters at his next thought.

“So you know the rest then.”

“Yes. I’m aware that enemy troops took you in 1944 and held you captive for seventy years. I know they tortured you. I have read all available literature on the subject, but I am by no means an expert on what happened to you. You’re the only one who can claim to know it all.”

“I wish I wasn’t,” Bucky admits with a wry scoff, looking away.

“Nobody could blame you for that.”

Bucky clears his throat.

“I think I can guess, but why don’t you tell me what it is you want to get out of therapy?”

“What’s your guess?”

“You want to separate who you are from what people turned you into. The people in your life—the ones who love you? They tell you that you’re already separate from it, but you can’t make yourself believe it.”

Still staring resolutely at the wedding photo on the bookshelf, Bucky shrugs.

“Something else on top of that?”

“You seem like you got your head on right,” Bucky says, ignoring how weak his voice sounds and pushing through it. He casts about for something real and solid to give Samson since that’s the only way this arrangement will help him. “Most days I just worry that I’m putting my friends in danger just by being around them. Is there a way you can help me with that?”

“The key word there is _help_. Now we can identify possible triggers and discuss grounding techniques to help you deal with them, but you need to understand that these are things you’ve got to work at every day. There is no surefire cure-all snake oil here; just honest communication and taking your recovery one day at a time.”

“But you can help me. You can help me feel like I’m in control of my life again.”

“You can take back control. You can _feel_ in control,” Samson confirms with a nod. “If we begin therapy.”

Bucky liked Samson enough just because he was Banner’s choice and he trusts Banner, but it’s good to see that Samson isn’t overconfident. He’s still ready to let Bucky turn him away and go with someone else.

“Pretty sure you’re stuck with me, doc.”

Samson smiles indulgently before he remembers himself.

“I’m happy to hear that, really, but I have to encourage you to meet with other psychiatrists, see who’s available and whether’s they’re compatible with what you need. Give yourself as many options as possible. Discuss your choice with the people closest to you and test their opinions against your own.”

“Okay, but I gotta say, it’s not lookin’ good for them.”

When they shake hands and walk back out the door they came in from, Wilson can be heard yodeling in the waiting room. Samson makes a truly priceless face. Bucky knocks on the double doors, instantly silencing the ruckus. At least now he can definitely trust that the office itself is soundproof. He’d meant to ask beforehand but got distracted with the meeting. Wilson opens the door a crack and then swings it open.

“So either these walls _aren’t_ soundproof, in which case, my bad, _or_ that was just the world’s shortest consultation ever?”

Bucky grins. It’s amazing that they’re sometimes on the exact same page.

“The office is soundproof for privacy reasons,” Samson explains, less bewildered than before.

“I asked if he’d test it out, sorry.”

“What are bros for, amirite?”

Samson laughs, shaking his head and looking distinctly like he’s _used_ to scenarios like this. “It’s always good to have at least one bold friend in your corner.”

“ _One?_ He’s got the _Avengers_ in his pocket. You’ve heard of Thor, right? God of Thunder?”

“Come on, Wilson. We’re done here.”

“And don’t even get me _started_ on Pepper Potts!”

Bucky walks Wilson out of the practice by his elbow and only looks back once at Samson’s muted amusement. Looks like he got to test Samson’s patience without ambushing Wilson. It’s a win in his mind.

“Right, so where are we going for dinner?”

“Hmmmmm, do you like Colombian food?”

After a moment’s consideration, Bucky grunts in the affirmative. Wilson leads him to Cafecito Bogota on Manhattan Avenue and they share a bottomless cup of coffee in the back of the restaurant. It’s not well-lit anyway, but Bucky’s learned after some trial and error that people tend to mistake him for a ‘Mark Hamill’ doppelgänger rather than recognize him for who he actually is. Bucky orders catfish medallions with rice and sweet plantains. Wilson gets pork cutlets with chick peas and salad.

“So you gonna go with McDreamy or you gonna try those other names on Sam’s list?”

Bucky chugs the perfect dark roast coffee that Wilson only sips at. He says, “I like Samson, but he told me to look into other doctors before deciding, so I guess I’m gonna honor his request.”

“Good idea. That way, you can show him you respect his opinion _and_ that you think he’s the bomb dot com.”

“What?”

“The ‘bomb dot com’? Oh, tin man, sometimes it’s like you’re a little alien.”

Their week goes on in that fashion. Wilson goes with him to meet with various psychiatrists. Some of them mean well enough, but some of them are wolves in sheep’s clothing. One woman, Bucky outright refuses to see purely because of the look of unveiled disgust she gets on her face when she sees Wilson’s face.

Bucky stays blindingly furious about it for two hours after the fact, chained by the wrist to Wilson’s hand so that he doesn’t take off and smash something. The only real inhibitor to what would have been a destructive streak is that Wilson plays at being unbothered by the whole thing. He skips along a pace behind Bucky once he’s slowed down from his angry stride and sings _Oh, Johnny! Oh, Johnny! Oh!_

_“Please tell me dear, what makes me love you so? You’re not handsome, it’s true, but when I look at you, I just, oh, Johnny! Oh, Johnny, oh! Da-da-da…”_

Other than the one horrendously bad appointment, the other consultations aren’t bad. Bucky doesn’t _like_ them, but he can see how each one of them, if chosen, would help him. In spite of their qualifications and understanding, he keeps coming back to Samson.

It isn’t enough for him to decide on a gut feeling, so he talks to Wilson about it and he talks to Karen and Foggy and Matt about it. He calls Sam and Steve and asks them what they would do. Eventually, once they all get a word in, mostly telling him to trust his instincts, which is useless, he calls Banner and asks why he threw in Samson’s name to start with.

“When we worked together, he was always a real level-headed guy. Couldn’t ruffle his feathers if you tried, and believe me, people liked to try. Bad types like to take that kinda self-control as a challenge, as I’m sure you know, but nobody could ever get to Leo. I figured you wouldn’t either. He’d be fair to you.”

“Sam tell you he was shoppin’ around for me?”

“He didn’t drop your name, but I had a feeling. Probably the same feeling he had when he thought about asking for my opinion; that I’d know ‘coz I’d been there.”

“Everyone’s tellin’ me it’s a good thing,” Bucky mumbles quietly into the phone. “Gettin’ help, I mean.”

“Do you feel like it is?”

“When I don’t think about it, yeah.”

“And when you do?”

“Then I just feel like all the small things I’ve tried to fix are gonna bust open.”

“I think that’s the point of therapy,” Banner says, rueful and sympathetic. “Or like breaking a bone so you can reset it correctly. Recovery…it’s painful. Doctors really do everything they can to make it easier on you, but even after they send you home, you still gotta wear the cast.”

“You might always walk with a limp,” Bucky adds in a duller voice, less hopeful than he would like.

“But you’ll walk.” Banner, maybe, smiles. “You might even dance if some lucky suitor’ll have you. Just means that, sometimes, you might still have to push harder than everybody else to feel past the pain. That doesn’t mean you won’t have good days. Trust me, Barnes, I know. You’re gonna have some _great_ days.”

Bucky’s already had great days. He’s had days with Wilson held up in clothing boutiques listening to Wilson go on and on about various designers that never caught on. He’s gone out early mornings with Karen to tiny coffeehouses to try half a dozen hot chocolate flavors. Weasel’s had Bucky over for playdates with their Custody Cat, as Wilson calls her. He’s stayed up late into the night texting Steve because it’s still the easiest way for them to communicate without breaking down into tears.

The bad days are unpredictable. They creep up from small, unnoticed moments and rip apart his calm at the source.

A bad day comes after his first phone call with Rebecca when he hears how different she sounds and when she hears how different _he_ sounds. A bad day jumps on him after he wakes up terrified and alone in Matt’s room following a tentatively built routine of waking up with Matt there to soothe him. Every day is a bad day unless he gets out ahead of it before it happens.

“What about the not-so great days? What do you do when you can’t see around how bad you feel?”

There’s a short pause. Banner’s voice sounds different on the other side of it, like the conversation just upgraded from personal to dire. It’s the least composed that Bucky’s ever heard Banner get.

“When it gets bad, you gotta tell someone—and not after the point that it’s too much for you to carry by yourself. You tell whoever you think’s gonna get you through it. You’re not alone in this, okay? Anything you ever think of doing, you gotta know that we’re here and that we know you’re hurting. We’re not gonna judge you or leave you. Do you believe that?”

The unshakeable current of strength in Banner’s voice doesn’t allow the answer to be anything _but_ yes. Knowing that Banner’s right anyway helps him say it out loud.

“Yeah, I believe it.”

Banner sighs. It has a quiet sound to it, relieved.

“Maybe if I get to a better place with this therapy stuff, I’ll be in some kind of way to deal with surgery.”

“Say the word and we’ll page Doc Ramirez, let her know we’re going through with it.”

“She ask to be there?”

“Well, she is technically your doctor more than Tony and I are. She feels a duty to you.”

Bucky can respect that. Ramirez took care of him when he was catatonic and applied a heating pad to his back. He trusts her to always look out for his best interests.

“I’m lucky to have her.”

“Yes, you are,” Banner agrees, definitely smiling now.

“I’m going with Samson, by the way. Knew I was when I walked out of his office.”

“I thought you might. He’s got a way about him.”

“He said you worked together.”

“We did. We collaborated on a project once. He tried to cure me.”

“Didn’t take?”

“There were complications. The, uh, Other Guy felt a threat. It was in the early days and I couldn’t control it that well. We might have known better, but…hope gets you to take reckless chances sometimes.”

Bucky swallows his follow-up questions. It isn’t his place to ask why Banner doesn’t try again or if he would even want to. He understands well enough why Banner would have tried to get rid of the Hulk before the Avengers and maybe even after. To press for more beyond that would just be pushing his luck for no reason.

“Leo’s gonna be good for you, Barnes. I know he is.”

“I feel good about him, too. Thanks for giving Sam his name.”

“Sure. Let me know when you’re ready to talk surgery. Tony and I’ve been looking into how to make it as painless as possible, and we think we’re onto something. It involves extraterrestrial apothecaries.”

“I don’t know if I’m intrigued or afraid.”

“Probably a healthy mix of both.”

Banner wishes him luck one more time and they hang up. Bucky turns the phone around in his hand and after a while, starts scrolling through his pictures. The most recent ones are of Мурка. She’s either curled up on Weasel’s scattered items of clean laundry or she’s following his right hand as he pets her. Matt hasn’t complained of him bringing cat hair into his apartment yet, but sometimes Bucky thinks it’s a near thing.

After the pictures of Мурка, there are some of Foggy and Karen at a park last Saturday. He has a few great shots of Foggy pushing Karen on a swing, but his magnum opus is the one he took of Foggy jumping from the highest point of the flimsy plastic seat. Bucky’d been standing too close, so the angle is slightly ridiculous, captured from the side and mostly showing Foggy’s legs, but the emphasis on his feet just makes the photo even more fantastic. On a whim, he sends it to Wilson and keeps scrolling through his pictures.

**Wade (8:52 PM)**  
**such a majestic creature ♥**

He’s got the most random shit squirreled away in his photo albums. A tied bunch of baby blue balloons left sitting at someone’s front door is memorialized right there in his phone. There’s a picture of a dandelion he saw growing through a crack in the sidewalk on his way to the office one morning with Matt. He’s got a picture from the office of four mugs filled with coffee and steaming, lined up on Foggy’s desk.

They’re eclectic and aesthetically pleasing mementos of his life. Jumbled up in the medley are pictures of his friends.

There’s one of Sam laughing his ass off on Monopoly Night, which is something they do now every _Thursday_ ; there’s one of Clint trying not to choke on his coffee, a great big mug in one hand and a fistful of Monopoly money in the other; there’s one of Natasha handing Pepper an uncapped beer bottle; there’s one he doesn’t think he was supposed to get of Pietro holding his sister’s hand. All of them come from Monopoly Night.

Steve attends Monopoly Night now that he’s not away from the tower on Bucky’s behalf. They’re careful about not wandering away from the group, trying to keep it light and low-risk. Bucky does his best not to be completely obvious and ridiculous about how happy he is that they’re spending time together at all, but he still sits right next to Steve and pretends not to notice how everyone else goes quiet every time.

In between pictures of Thor grinning at the thimble token fitting perfectly on his thumb and Sam throwing orange five hundred dollar bills at Steve, Bucky gets up the courage to open a text to Clint. He asks if anyone would object to him inviting Foggy, Matt, or Karen along for the next gathering. On any given night, they might be too busy to break away from their work to do such frivolous things with their time, but everyone needs a night off eventually. That’s his logic anyway, and he’s sticking to it.

**Clint (9:15 PM)**  
**Of course. Theyre your monopoly thorsdays 2 u kno**

Bucky lets the invitation slip as casually as he can the next morning to Matt. He smiles and looks genuinely pleased at the offer. They’re not going into the office together, so he promises to relay the message to Foggy and Karen in his stead.

After Matt leaves for work, Bucky hangs around at the apartment trying to decide what to do. He’s trying to get used to the idea of not being attached at the hip to Matt, Karen, and Foggy all day. When he’d brought the idea up to them, they encouraged him to relax and marathon some TV shows. Foggy connected him to a few apps that would reportedly let him watch many episodes at one time. They’d explained it and it hadn’t sounded convincing, but he’s willing to give it a shot.

He calls Dr. Samson’s office to schedule an appointment and then he texts around for advice on picking a show. Wilson replies immediately and tells him to watch _The United States of Tara_. When they reply, Clint tells him to watch _Leverage_ , Sam tells him to watch _Heroes_ , and Karen tells him to watch _Sense8_. Bucky’s one episode into Wilson’s selection and two into Clint’s when Steve suggests _Good Eats_.

He almost just shelfs it for after he gives the other shows a look, but there’s an episode about avocados and he’s curious and he completely falls down a rabbit hole of food and trivia. Five episodes in—and they fly by because they’re so damn short—he just starts texting Steve about them while he gets up to make a sandwich.

**Bucky (02:45 PM)**  
**What’s your favorite episode?**

**Steve (02:58 PM)**  
**The one about popcorn**

**Bucky (03:00 PM)**  
**I liked when he was The Waffler**

**Steve (3:01 PM)**  
**The hero the world deserves**

**Steve (3:01 PM)**  
**Definitely can’t beat that costume either**

**Bucky (03:06 PM)**  
**Do you cook?**

**Steve (03:07 PM)**  
**With mixed results**

**Bucky (03:08 PM)**  
**Did you just**

**Bucky (3:08 PM)**  
**Was that a pun**

**Steve (3:10 PM)**  
**Maybe**

Bucky watches the rest of the remaining episodes in the collection, dismayed to see that there are only twenty-five episodes. He texts Steve about reaching the last available episode and Steve sends him a link to the TV channel’s website where there are— _glory…._ — _sixteen_ seasons to choose from.

He gives up and calls Steve for the coffee episode in the second season. At first, Steve’s content to listen to Bucky’s commentary on the show and chip in where Bucky falls silent to watch. By the end of that same episode, Steve’s synched up with him as they close as they can get it over the phone. Bucky can hear the slight time lag between their streams, but he likes the oddity of it.

Matt comes home late in the evening and Bucky’s still on the phone with Steve, folded up on the couch with the tablet Karen helped him pick out two weeks ago. He switched to earbuds an episode ago, anticipating that Matt would be home soon. The left earbud is in, the phone pressed up to his right.

“You know, I never thought about it, but honey is kind of nice to look at,” Steve’s saying while Matt’s ambling toward his room and tipping his head in Bucky’s direction as a silent hello.

Bucky waves noisily with his metal hand, scraping his fluttering fingers so they make tiny shreds of noise that Matt will hear. He doesn’t want to deter Steve from talking. Matt could probably pick up on his voice through the phone as soon as he opened the door, so Bucky runs with Matt’s choice for a wordless greeting. Besides, Steve’s on a roll—finally comfortable after a few hours of settling into this funny thing they’re doing—and Bucky’d hate to trip him up now.

“Just has that look like you wanna touch it but you know you shouldn’t because of the mess.”

“What’s wrong with a messy kitchen?” Bucky asks aimlessly, loving this conversation because it’s the exact type of goofy that this entire series has been and that’s why he’s so hooked on it. “It’s only a little sweetness, Steve.”

“It’s not that. It’s that it’s so sticky,” Steve protests.

Matt comes out of his room wearing sweatpants and a loose t-shirt. He goes into the kitchen for some water and Bucky pauses his tablet, letting Steve ramble on pleasantly in his ear about the utility of honey. 

“How’d you find out about this show anyway?”

“It was on Netflix,” Steve says, sheepish. “I like cooking shows, and this one’s not like the others. I got really into it when the trial started. Sorta became my smoking habit.”

“I approve. I woulda just started smoking.”

“No, you woulda learned Braille. You _did_ learn Braille.”

“True.”

Matt snorts and Bucky remembers that he’s here and that it is _his_ apartment after all.

For Steve’s benefit and for Matt’s, Bucky moves the phone away from his mouth and says, “Want me to clear out, Matt?”

“Oh, no, thanks. Do you need anything?”

“Nah, I’m all set.”

“All right, just knock on my door if that changes.”

His demeanor screams _I’m going to nap in my awesome bed and it’s going to be awesome_ , but Bucky doesn’t comment on it. He merely waits for Matt to duck back into his room before directing his attention back to Steve.

“Matt’s home.”

“I heard. How is he?”

“Workin’ hard and missin’ sleep, like he does.”

“Should we call it a day? We’ve been at it for hours.”

“Isn’t that how a marathon works?”

“Well, yeah.” Steve hesitates. “You don’t think he might’ve wanted to join in? We’re mostly just hanging out while Alton Brown talks in the background.”

“He was dressed for bed,” Bucky says, too casual because he’s lying by telling the truth—because what he’s not saying is that he didn’t invite Matt because he didn’t want to split this time he has with Steve. “Or a nap, really.”

“Oh. If you’re sure.”

Since they’re sort of on the topic and Bucky can hear that Steve’s episode has also stopped playing, he mentions his Monopoly Night invitation to Matt, Karen, and Foggy. Steve likes the idea, has enjoyed the concept of merging their friend groups since before Bucky was acquitted.

They get to talking about said merging friend groups and spiral off into conversation. A huge topic of interest concerns certain cliques that have begun to emerge between their friends. Pepper, Natasha, Karen, and Maria form one, and Wilson, Foggy, Sam, and Clint form the other. This is not to speak of Matt’s supposed camaraderie with Stark and Banner that Steve can attest to but that Bucky has not yet seen.

The whole thing just serves to reveal a difficult but obvious truth—that their friends are adjusting better than they are, better than they really _ought_ to be adjusting by now; _integrating_.

For all that Bucky has tentatively has stepped into Steve’s world and started to learn his friends, he’s kept Steve himself at arm’s length almost the entire time. He plans on bringing it up to Samson and seeing what he has to say about improving his approach, but he doesn’t know how to tell Steve and it makes everything certifiably weird between them.

As he suspects, Samson tells Bucky what he already guessed on his own: that distancing himself from Steve is a self-defense mechanism just as much as it is a punishment. He’s afraid to hurt Steve like he had on the helicarrier, and in forbidding further opportunities to repeat his mistake, he’s withholding Steve’s proximity from himself in a self-imposed exile.

Samson tells him that that’s not healthy. If he keeps at it, eventually his caution will default into resentment. Bucky doesn’t want that.

The next time he and Steve marathon _Good Eats_ , they’re actually together at Avengers Tower in the middle of the day. Stark sticks them in a room with long, luxurious couches and a huge wall-mounted TV. All Bucky can really think for the first five or so minutes that they’re in there is that the damn couches would make Matt weep with envy. In fact, he doesn’t really pay any attention to what’s happening in the show until they get to an episode about cheesecake and then he’s enthralled.

“We should try baking,” he tells Steve, relaxed after about an hour of inexplicable fidgeting and fussing.

Steve glances at him for a moment and then returns his gaze to the TV. “Ten bucks says you complain when I make a mess.”

Without even thinking about it, Bucky deadpans, “Did you just summarize our youth?”

He starts to freeze, worrying that he’s spoken out of turn or that his words will offend. Instead of bristling at all, Steve laughs, unmistakably relieved.

That’s how it starts, with Steve. Samson’s good about guiding Bucky to a middle ground where he can only see two extremes in any given situation. They talk through his lingering fears about living with Matt or going to see his sister or trying to get back into the habit of sparring with another person. Heavier issues come up every now and again, and once they do, it’s easier to identify his problems as symptoms of PTSD.

The flashbacks are pretty obvious. Dissociation is one of the more insidious ones. Bucky hadn’t even realized that he’s experienced it countless times since he first came to New York, one of the first times being in Harlem when he blinked and lost Mahoney on the streets. He only discovered that it was still happening because he was with Karen— _Karen_ , of all people—at a bookstore when a ladder fell.

“It started to feel like I was slowing down,” he tells Samson at one appointment. “And she got us out of there before it got really bad, but after a while, she said I just stopped talking. I don’t even remember losing time.”

Bucky has a lot of dark thoughts about his progress—dark in terms of pessimism and dark in terms of remembering some of the really terrible shit that’s happened to him. There’s no filtering it out.

While chopping carrots to make soup with an online recipe, the glint of the knife against the board reminds him of the time he disfigured a trainee in sanctioned combat because his orders had been to maim, not kill. They’d punished him for it, and he hadn’t understood why. Even when asked what the hell he was thinking, he could only repeat their orders to him, verbatim. He hadn’t _thought_ to do anything. The programming had led him astray. He’d been beaten for nearly an hour over erroneous code. He doesn’t even know what happened to the trainee.

“I don’t know how to have a normal life when everything sets me off.”

“Aiming for normal’s only gonna leave you feeling disappointed,” Samson tells him, trying to be reassuring but not really succeeding. “Right now, it feels hard because all you can do is try and keep your head above water.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

Some months into therapy as his guards are coming down, Bucky falls asleep watching _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ with Steve in the theater room. He doesn’t mean to. _God,_ he doesn’t mean to, but he wakes up forgetting where he is. All he can think in that dark room on that soft couch is that he’s not on the floor in Matt’s bedroom or in Matt’s apartment, period.

His fear is immediate. He’s been taken. This is his life, a series of steadily worsening abductions that he can’t prevent. He’s somewhere that he shouldn’t be and he’s going to be repurposed again and he’s going to hurt people again and there’s nothing he can do.

He remembers the lights coming on and someone lifting him off and he remembers the look on Steve’s face, the bruise on his cheek where Bucky hit him. Bucky did that.

Nobody made him. Nobody forced that impulse out of him.

Bucky’s staring at him in frozen terror and then his head hurts, sharp and faster than a migraine could be. Next thing he knows he’s waking up in a spartan bedroom—still not Matt’s—complete with a bed, a dresser, and a lamp, currently switched on. He sees his boots on the floor, laces undone and tucked in over the soles. There’s a handwritten note on the bedside table.

 

_Bucky,_  
_It’s Karen. You’re in Avengers Tower. It’s either Tuesday night or Wednesday morning depending on what time you wake up. Tony called Dr. Samson to let him know what happened. He said we should keep you in the building for your own protection. Foggy’s with me. We’re just outside. Press the button by the door when you’re ready to come out. Nobody’s mad at you._

_—Candles_

 

Bucky doesn’t press the button. He sits on the bed with his arms wrapped around his knees, cursing that he could ever be so stupid.

Of course Karen tells him they’re not mad at him. He’s not worried about whether they are or not. They should be, and to him, that’s the only thing that matters. Obviously he’s damaged beyond repair; basically a time bomb ticking down as his fuse gets shorter and shorter. If they won’t do the rational thing and cut him out, then…he has no idea what to do. Gone are the days when he could walk away from them without batting an eyelash. He’s pretty sure leaving them now would destroy him and that just makes him hate himself even more.

There isn’t a clock or window in the room, so he can’t gauge how long he’s been sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest. He only gets up to search for a camera, thinking that there must be one so that Stark can monitor his behavior.

Bucky doesn’t find a camera, but he does locate an intercom that should facilitate two-way communication. He taps the receiver with one metal finger, expecting Stark on the other end.

“Hello?”

“Yes, sir?”

He rears back, not prepared for the spike of fear the unknown voice puts in his heart. Blinking quickly and backing away, he says, “Who’m I talkin’ to?”

“I am called J.A.R.V.I.S., a creation of Mr. Stark’s.”

A voice in a computer like Zola’s voice in a computer. Bucky covers his eyes with his right hand and places the other on the wall to hold himself up, chills running up and down his spine. He breaks out into a sweat and his hands shake.

“Mr. Barnes? Is there something the matter?”

Stark built this voice. That should make it okay. He tells himself that he’s okay; that it’s not Zola and will never be Zola again, but thinking that blurs the panic into rage that he almost can’t come down from. This voice isn’t Zola. This voice isn’t responsible for the pain his body has come to associate with survival.

“I’ve been instructed to remind you that you are free to leave this room at your leisure, sir. The green button to your left will open the door.”

Bucky glances at it, lit up green beneath translucent plastic. He sighs and runs his hands through his hair and breathes according to the tempo of his heartbeat. J.A.R.V.I.S. doesn’t speak to him while he’s calming himself down. Nobody’s in his head telling him what to do when he finally presses the button.

He half-expected to see Karen and Foggy asleep in lawn chairs, camped outside his door all night, but the corridor is empty and sunken in nightfall. There’s only one person waiting up for him. It’s Wanda.

The dark circles beneath her eyes look even deeper in this light, almost like they must hurt. She takes two steps forward, still leaving a large divide between them. Pulses of red light emanate from her hands like fire, chasing away the shadows.

“Are you all right?”

Bucky can hear her accent. Until this moment, he had never heard her speak. It seems strange that these are her first words to him. She must detect his confusion.

“I thought you would hurt yourself.”

“What’re you talkin’ about?”

Wanda takes a breath to steady herself. “My brother pulled you away. I made you sleep until we could get help.”

Bucky touches his temple, recalling the swift bite of pain in his head just before he blacked out. He’s grateful that’s all it was. For a while, he thought he’d dissociated and maybe things had escalated while he wasn’t looking.

“Thanks.”

“I’m sorry?”

He sighs. “Thank you. I shouldn’t have…you shouldn’t have had to do that for me.”

“Not all accidents can be stopped before they happen,” she says with sadness thick in her voice and a wrinkle between her eyebrows.

“Guess that’s so we can make mistakes.”

A dismayed expression twitches over her face. The red clouds at her hands fluctuate unevenly, sparking brighter one moment and almost fading out completely in the next. He can’t really know without getting closer, but it looks like a sign of distress.

“The people that hurt you, took me and my brother. That is what your friend said to me.”

“Who, Steve?”

“Wade Wilson.”

Bucky’s heart gives an infinitesimal flutter of fondness. He can’t come up with a response before Wanda redirects.

“Will you walk with me?”

He doesn’t see what else he would do. Leaving is out of the question. Sitting in the privacy room alone with only a machine, no matter how polite, to keep him company isn’t an option.

“Sure.”

Wanda walks on one side of the corridor and Bucky stays firmly on the other. It’s wide enough that if they both held their arms out, their hands might not touch. He doesn’t test the theory out; just walks with his arms folded tightly across his chest and his socked footsteps light on the carpeted floor.

This floor must be filled with living quarters, judging by how spaced out the rooms are. The steel doors are mostly engraved with easily distinguished symbols as well: a lightning bolt for Thor, a spider for Natasha, an arrow for Clint, et cetera. Bucky looks for a door that denotes Steve’s existence behind it, but either they’ve past it or Steve doesn’t have a room of his own.

He doesn’t know where Wanda’s leading him, but he decides that it doesn’t matter. She’s practically a ward of the Avengers at this point. That puts them in the same boat.

Turns out, she takes him to a kitchen. Bucky’s stomach gurgles at the prospect of food, and when she looks at him, something suspiciously close to a smile flickers over her lips. He inspects the cabinets and finds an opened box of pop-tarts. The entire box goes with him as he jumps up to sit on the counter. Wanda sits quietly at the table a few feet off and declines his offer of stolen pop-tarts.

“Where’s your brother?”

“Sleeping. I do not wake him if I can avoid it.”

“You help him sleep, too?” he asks in between bites.

“When he has nightmares. Some nights he does, so I do.”

“Must be tough.”

“No. He is older, but I protect him. It is for nothing if I don’t.”

“I know the feeling.”

“I have seen you before.”

Bucky chews on a large clump of pop-tart, doing little to savor the taste of artificial strawberries on his tongue. Wanda’s hands have stopped glowing, probably because the lights in the kitchen are running on the lowest setting to conserve energy while leaving this one area reliably visible. He tries to picture the incident that decided Stark on always leaving the kitchen illuminated; tries to imagine which one of them stubbed their toe whilst in pursuit of a midnight snack.

Wanda is young. Bucky hadn’t really noticed before because of how her stress ages her. He can see how small she looks now folded up in her chair at the table, watching him.

“He was afraid for you.”

“When you had that dream, you mean?”

“Yes.” She piles her hands in her lap and studies them instead of his face. “He had many fears.”

“Well, you can’t be brave if nothing scares you.”

“Do you know what his fear was?”

“No, and I’m not sure it’s any of my business.”

She looks up at him, eyes flashing a vivid but murky red. He crumples up the sheer wrapper in his hand and gets down from the counter to throw it away. Maybe he ought to feel threatened, giving her his back, but he doesn’t. She’s proven already that she can incapacitate him if she perceives a threat. All he has to do is not threaten her.

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but just keep that to yourself, all right? He hasn’t told me, so maybe it’s not your place to do it for him.”

He walks around to sit at the table across from her, careful and purposeful about how he moves so that he won’t startle her. She stares at the table, frowning, and raises one hand over the unyielding surface. Red energy crackles soundlessly over her knuckles like a coin might with the same fluid movements.

“I saw,” she murmurs. “It was only a moment, but I didn’t want to look. Your mind was in such chaos.”

It takes him a moment to understand what she’s saying. His body goes cold when he does.

“Oh.”

Quieter, she tells him, “We only meant to help.”

“You did help.”

It’s important that he tell her that somehow. It’s important to him, undeniably so, that this thing she did out of protective instinct doesn’t become yet another moment of doing harm. If Hydra did anything to her like they did to him, then she doesn’t need any more of those to add insult to injury, and he certainly has no place making it harder on her to fight her way out of it when he’s going through the same thing.

Bucky might not like the thought of someone who’s not Samson getting in his head, but it doesn’t change the fact that they need to stick together.

“Just don’t do it again. If you need to, then that’s different. Within reason, I mean. I don’t know.”

“If I think you might hurt yourself,” she says, not quite phrasing it as a question.

It’s then that he realizes she explained it that way the first time. She didn’t take him out to protect _Steve_. She did it to keep him from hurting _himself_.

“If I might hurt someone else,” he clarifies. “Like today, how I would’ve hurt Steve.”

“You weren’t going to hurt him.”

“What?”

“I felt it. You would have used your rage to hurt yourself. Only in that way would you have wounded him.”

Now Bucky looks away. Wanda leans in slightly in his peripheral vision. She can see that her teeth have found the jugular and she has no intention of backing away. 

“Your suffering becomes their pain. I know.”

Exposed but unwilling to be the only one, he snaps back. “So what do you do? Hm? Your brother’s hurting because of the shit in your head telling you everything’s bad and it’s killing you both from the inside out, but you keep dragging him through it anyway? Why? Because it’s better than being alone?”

“To be alone is not an option.” A burst of red seizes over the back of her hand like a safety flare cutting through a pitch black night. “We heal each other,” she enunciates, refusing to be weak in her empathy; deciding that she must be strong for both of them if his best defense is to resort to anger. “Piece by piece, until we fit again.”

Bucky sits back in his chair and clasps his hands together. Wanda’s fingers twitch, drawing his attention to a scrap of metal floating near her hand. He’s not sure if it’s meant to calm her or if she’s just employing the most nonviolent gestures possible to telegraph her abilities to him. He has no idea how he would defend himself against her if she decided to attack. It’s a bizarre comfort but comfort all the same. Maybe she understands the burden of lethality, of being too dangerous to be stopped under ordinary circumstances.

Wanda stays up with him in the kitchen until dawn, just about. He has questions, but all of them are heavy and probably not his business. It’s astounding enough that she sought him out at all.

The one thing he does ask her is how she and Pietro got to him in time when no one else seemed aware of what happened. Apparently the Maximoff twins have a habit of hovering when Bucky’s around. She doesn’t say that they’re curious about him, but he can deduce it from the other things she has said—that she saw him in Wilson’s dream and that they both underwent similar treatment at the hands of Hydra.

He thinks to be annoyed that he hasn’t cottoned onto their interest in him sooner. Sure, he’s seen them sneaking around on Monopoly Night to look at him, but he didn’t think anything of it. Nobody else did.

Sam finds them first; really happens upon them by accident while rummaging through the fridge for milk. He fully opens his eyes when he turns around with the carton and an empty glass in hand and startles. Bucky and Wanda, still sitting in semi-darkness, stare at him.

“Good morning?”

“Hey, Sam.”

“You, uh, want some milk, Barnes?”

“Yeah, please.”

“What about you?”

“No. Thank you.”

Wanda stands from the table and leaves without another word. The sliver of steel she was manipulating gets left behind. Sam pours another glass and Bucky rounds the table to examine it. There’s nothing in the tiny piece of metal to even indicate that a person was touching it once. It’s cold in his hand and glints silver, not red, in the light.

“All right?”

Bucky pockets the metal and takes the glass of milk. “Fine.”

“Karen and Foggy are around. Probably be asleep for another few hours, though.”

“I got their note.”

They drink their milk standing. Bucky’s throat goes tight. He doesn’t succeed in sounding casual when he gets his words to come out.

“Is Steve okay?”

“He’s good.”

“Good. That’s good.” He nods and downs the rest of his glass.

“You wanna come for a run with me?”

“What?”

“Yeah, I run in the mornings.” Sam pats his stomach. “We don’t all have super fast metabolisms, you know. _Some_ of us gotta work to look this good.”

Bucky laughs and looks away, on the verge of tears or about to scream or he doesn’t know what. His next breath comes out of him rougher and he rubs his hands over his face, heaving a sigh that rattles out of him.

“Hey, I won’t even get mad if you run circles around me like your show-off friend does. He ever tell you that’s how we met?”

“No.”

Bucky starts walking, too fast and on shaking legs. Sam keeps pace with him and follows him to the room they set him up in so he can get his boots back on his feet. After that, it’s a straight shot to the exits. One look at the closed space of the elevator get Bucky’s skin crawling, so they take the stairs to the ground floor. Sam jokes about how he’s going to get tired before they even start running, and Bucky tries to smile because it’s funny but he can’t. It takes everything he has to just not fall apart before they get outside.

Once they’re in the open air, Sam sets off into a light jog. Bucky follows him, not wanting to jet ahead and lose his shit when he inevitably gets disorientated. Sam clearly has an idea of where they’re going. 

They up the pace once they reach grass and trees. Bucky could leave Sam to eat his dust, but he stays right at Sam’s side, matching him. It’s cool out and Sam’s more dressed for the weather than Bucky is, but he’s survived lying half-dead in snow with a mutilated arm for days at a time, so really, a gentle breeze is nothing.

Sam’s drenched in a layer of sweat after two laps encompassing a deserted park. Bucky stands off to the side staring up at the sky while he catches his breath with a hand leaned up on a tree.

“What’m I gonna do, Sam?”

“What you’ve been doing’s workin’ out pretty good, I’d say.” He sucks in a few deep breaths, trying to even them out so he can speak. “You woke up in a new place and thought you were in danger. Given how often that’s happened to you in your lifetime, it makes sense. I’m not sayin’ you didn’t get him good, man, but it could’ve been a lot worse. It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault.”

“Feels like it’s my fault. Feels like everything’s my fault.”

“Everything, huh?” Sam gingerly sits down at the tree’s base. “So it’s your fault Steve and I became friends? Damn, thanks for that, Barnes. And here I thought you didn’t like sharing.”

Bucky’s face goes warm and he rolls his eyes. Sam’s tone is genial, teasing.

“Come to think of it, it’s _also_ your fault that Wade and I got to kick Hydra’s ass with the _Avengers_. Not that _that_ was a big deal or anything. Kind of a bummer, actually, when I think about it. The Maximoffs probably think so, too, right?”

Sam watches him, shoulders relaxed and chin tipped leisurely back so that his head can rest against the tree. Bucky fidgets, kicks his heel at a patch of recently mown grass.

“And I know damn sure it’s your fault I met Karen.”

_It’s my fault you did what?_

“You and Wilson,” Bucky mumbles, inexplicably warm through his chest where only a moment ago he’d been cold. “Romancin’ my lawyers.”

“But you see the difference, right? Yeah, you brought us all together and it’s because of you that certain things lined up how they did, but we all made our own choices. Steve said you didn’t even want Wilson running around Europe tryna fix things on your account. All this stuff, man? It just happens. You can’t control the good things anymore than you can the bad, and that’s not on you. That’s just how it is.”

Bucky swallows and sits down across from Sam, crossing his legs and lacing his fingers together in his lap. He can hear that Sam means what he’s saying to him and that he wants Bucky to accept and believe it.

And he does, sometimes. Maybe it’s not a deep, unshakeable belief, but in time, he might internalize it. Might. He hopes.

Bucky clears his throat after they’ve been sitting in silence for a while. “We should probably head back.”

“You don’t need more time?”

“No. Moving around helped with the…you know.”

“Yeah?” Sam starts to stand and takes Bucky’s hand when he extends it to him. A funny expression flickers over his face, but he shakes it off. “Maybe we oughta run together. Make it a thing we do.”

They start jogging back in the direction of the Tower and Bucky gives a noncommittal answer. Sam doesn’t talk much while they’re running, probably in an effort to conserve his oxygen. The quiet doesn’t normally bother Bucky, but he’s nervous about going back to everyone else and maybe seeing Steve. Not to mention, Bucky doesn’t have much of a problem regulating his breathing, so he just starts chattering away a few minutes in. Mostly he talks about Alton Brown because that’s the safest, most readily accessible subject on his mind.

Sam says things like, “Oh?” and “Did you make that up?” and “Uh-huh.” Sometimes he snorts. Bucky even gets him to double over with laughter once. It’s a big win.

When they get back, Sam’s shirt is sticking to him and he looks like he pushed himself hard on their run. Bucky didn’t get winded once, but his hair is flattened to his forehead and he started to sweat once they got the building in their sights. Sam does his best to reassure him, but his feet drag anyway.

Bucky worried that everyone would be crowded around the door to look at him as soon as they got in, but they don’t encounter anyone right away. They take the elevator up to the floor with the living quarters and finally see people in the kitchen. Karen notices them first. She’s sitting at the table with Steve and Tony—clad in boxers and a faded t-shirt—while Foggy bustles around brewing coffee and getting down mugs from the cabinets. Sam steps into the kitchen first and waits just inside the doorway for Bucky to stand at his shoulder. 

“Ah, gentlemen,” Stark says, which is deeply confusing for Bucky because his tone says _Stark_ but the boxers with cartoon wrenches on them say _Tony_. “We were thinking waffles. Input?”

“Uh.” Bucky glances at Steve.

Steve stares at his hands in his lap. Something in Bucky’s chest aches viciously. At least the bruise on his cheek is no more. It doesn’t make Bucky feel better, but still.

“I’ll eat whatever, Tony.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Stark quips.

“Let’s see,” Sam muses, catching Bucky’s eye. “Someone’s been nicking metal off your suits in between oil changes?”

“Excuse me?”

With a carefree smile and a shrug, he says, “Something you didn’t know.”

“Now, wait a second.”

Bucky sinks his hand into his pocket and feels for the tiny trinket of pilfered metal even as Stark tries to grill Sam for information as casually as possible. This exchange is likely unnecessary and an innocent bit of fun to reduce the tension in the room. Bucky slinks around them and gravitates to Foggy’s side. He’s right in front of the coffee pot, so he takes a few seconds to just breathe in the full, rich smell of it.

“Hey, Bucky. Enjoy your run?”

“It was okay. How did you sleep?”

“Like a king,” Foggy tells him, looking slightly embarrassed at the admission. “You know, a king with minimal responsibilities. And no crown.”

Bucky frowns, thinking about it. “So like a lord.”

Foggy laughs. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Matt still in Hell’s Kitchen?”

“Oh, yeah, he’s working through some stuff with the case. Figured one of us should stay at the office and hold down the fort.”

“Right.”

“In case a witness turns up looking for us. Or a…new client, probably.”

Smirking a tiny bit, Bucky nods and says, “Yeah.”

“Is the coffee ready?” Clint’s voice sails over the rest of the muted voices in the kitchen. “Nat, coffee.”

Bucky sneaks away and sits next to Karen at the table, putting himself where Wanda was last night. Steve sits across from him where Bucky had been.

Karen turns to look at him and softens her voice. “Hey.”

“Hi.” He pauses. “Candles.”

She cracks a smile and hums. Steve glances up then, eyes so damn blue and worried and Bucky’s stomach turns like he’s about to be sick because he keeps fucking doing this, keeps proving to everyone just how much of a busted mess he is. 

“Hey, Barnes, how do you take your coffee?” Clint says, thoroughly distracting Bucky from the severity of his thoughts. Both him and Natasha look over their shoulders at him for a response.

“Just dump sugar in it,” he grumbles after a moment, discombobulated.

“Pay up,” Natasha croons, holding her hand out to Clint.

Shaking his head, defeated, Clint groans, “He just looks like a white coffee kind of guy.”

They have breakfast like this. Sam leaves after to take a shower and Bucky does, too, at some point since he figures that’s the polite thing to do. It’s not until later when the table’s cleared and Tony finally gets some pants on that they talk about what happened.

Clint and Natasha hover at the door to the hallway, not obstructing the exit so much as flanking it. Tony pulls a chair up in between him and Steve, and Bucky swallows down his ugly feelings of shame and inadequacy to tell them how he feels about moving forward from what they’re calling _The Incident_. It’s just a creative way to get out of saying, _You hit Steve, again. What are you gonna do to keep it from happening, again?_

And he tells them that, and he gets upset enough that Foggy suggests everyone clear out to give him some space. They file out and Bucky asks Steve to go, too, even though it kills him. He holds his head in his hands for a solid five minutes or so and Tony doesn’t say anything. When he eventually straightens out and Tony slides a glass of water over to him, he’s less of a trembling wreck, but only barely.

“I can’t keep doing this.”

“Drinking water? Uh, good luck with that. It’s sorta something you need.”

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“Okay. Pretend that instead of ‘drinking water’, I said, ‘patching up your relationship with Steve Rogers’. Same thing. Stucky is real, remember?”

“Don’t get fucking cute with me, Tony.”

“Yeah, see, that’s not something I’m especially good at. I got thrown out of a window once by a trickster god over a penis joke. This is the only setting I run on.”

Bucky sighs and runs his hands through his hair. He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair and looking everywhere but at Tony. If he said something cruel, Tony might drop it all and leave him alone. He might get angry and call it quits on Bucky permanently. Bucky sets his jaw, decided on silence. He’s hurt Tony enough.

Tony sets his hands on the table and shrugs.

“Look, kid, I won’t lie to you, okay? Sometimes, when you look like you wanna give up, it scares the hell out of us. Steve more than anybody, for obvious reasons.” Under his breath, he says, “Because Stucky is real.”

“Please,” Bucky whispers, closing his eyes when he hears what he sounds like. “Stop.”

Tony does stop. Somehow it’s worse than if he had just kept going with no thought for how it would make Bucky feel. He makes his voice gentle, but his resolve remains like iron.

“All right, clearly, this is a soft spot for you, so I won’t poke at it. But I do need you to tell me how we make this better because sitting around hating myself for the harm I’ve done never got me anywhere, and it’s not gonna work for you either.”

Wanda’s words play back in Bucky’s mind. _‘Not all accidents can be stopped before they happen.’_

“Maybe…it’d be safer it I stayed here.”

Tony raises his eyebrows, overcompensating with his expression to hide that he’s considered that option before. Bucky looks away, preferring not to dissect the emotions playing on his face.

“Sam said Wanda was talking to you this morning.”

“She was.”

“She ask you to stay here?”

“No. She didn’t say anything like that. Just apologized for…” Bucky wiggles his fingers near his head.

“Now _that_ sounds like her.”

“I gotta talk to Matt before I do anything, but if the twins are here and they’re doing okay, then maybe there’s somethin’ to it.”

“Well, not that I have a room set aside for you or anything, but if you wanted to move your stuff in as early as tonight, that would be peachy keen. Just sayin’.”

Bucky scoffs. “Who wins the bet on that one?”

“Nat does; two for two. Turns out she’s really, _really_ good at reading people. Or maybe it’s just you in particular? I never know. Keeps us on our toes, that one. Takes some getting used to.”

Bucky doubts that somehow, but it sinks in for him once he gives Tony the okay to call everybody back in. He’s going to be living with Natasha, too, if she’s set up here in the room behind the spider door. All he can reasonably hope for is that being near her will have the effect on him that he hopes to have on the twins. Maybe they’ll open up to each other and fill in some of the spaces to make sense of the pain. Maybe they’ll heal up piece by piece until they fit together again, like Wanda said.

Natasha catches his gaze when she walks back into the kitchen. It’s like she knows already what’s coming next. Tony did say that she could read him. He’s curious to see how that plays out for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky’s painting  
> http://www.greatbigcanvas.com/view/opposites-attract,1117956/?s=UpEASDlJKm2uqhJhYGFv3TrPvrt6yGlFl1uZLgpmaAWskCUavxn5N7JSWoamVtq 
> 
> Wade’s painting  
> http://www.greatbigcanvas.com/view/fractal-light-iii,ge0170250/?s=fv0M6ZJOine1wOOXr0FK4bZZ3tVYPfKXItHWmrI2zPFJbRKbQvrBbOSyvxCY 
> 
> Jumaane Williams as Dr. Leonard Samson (I know he’s a politician and not an actor, but I love his voice and he has such a kind face fight me)  
> http://static01.nyt.com/images/2011/09/06/nyregion/COUNCIL/COUNCIL-articleLarge.jpg 
> 
>  
> 
> *I’m pretending that all of Good Eats is available to watch online on Food Network because that is the world I want to live in.
> 
> **The thing Wanda does where she looks like she's walking a coin on her knuckles is a nod to Dadneto.


	3. Tony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky moves into the Avengers Tower with everybody's blessing but still has some heavy feels about his reasons for being there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not even a tiny bit beta'd because why

Apparently everyone knew before Bucky did that he’d be moving into Avengers Tower. Clint tells him they had a leg up since there was really no getting around the bedroom Tony set up for him several months back, before the trial properly hit the courts. It’s a really fine example of counting chickens before they hatch, but Tony put a lot of work into the arm, so it’s hardly surprising that he’d go this far in his post-verdict planning.

Tony offers to drive Karen, Foggy, and Bucky back to Hell’s Kitchen once the worst of the dust clears. He stops once for five boxes of doughnuts, which Bucky finds excessive until they discover that one box is for them. They take turns choosing, all of them trying to guess at what flavor Matt might be most willing to eat. Bucky picks one ominously called ‘Blackout’.

Late breakfast in hand, they zip over to Nelson & Murdock so they can confer with Matt over doughnuts. Foggy lists off the possible selections for Matt, and while he looks reluctant to give any of them a try, the chocolate monstrosity that Bucky chose tempts him enough that he takes one and then eats the remaining two.

Bucky tells himself again and again that being smug about picking the winning doughnut is childish, but it does nothing to put a damper on his elation. They polish off the box and begin to chatter away about mundane subjects, Bucky almost forgetting that he basically had a meltdown this morning over yesterday’s setback. He scrubs a napkin over his mouth and clears his throat, interrupting the conversation.

“I think I’m moving out.”

“Oh.” Matt sits up, looking interested and perfectly unworried. “Tony finally get up the courage to ask you?”

Karen and Foggy shrug at Bucky’s confused expression. It wasn’t a secret then. They didn’t tell Matt, but they probably didn’t need to. Given their chumminess at the trial, it’s possible Matt and Tony discussed the logistics of Bucky needing a place to live after his release. When Bucky fell back on the habit of calling Matt’s home his shelter, they must have just left it alone. Without Bucky saying any of this out loud, Matt confirms it for him.

“I told him you might want to start with one of us until you felt more stable. He thought you’d handle the switch better if it was your idea, so we just waited.”

“And then Monopoly Night became a thing,” Bucky fills in.

“That wasn’t planned,” Karen chimes in, sipping at her coffee. “They really were just teaching Thor to play Monopoly and you happened to be there for it.”

“Some coincidence.”

“I’d say,” Foggy snorts. “Not everyday the god of thunder bankrupts you over Park Place.”

Shaking his head, Bucky mutters, “I had him on the ropes.”

It’s a sentence loaded with memory and his chest aches trying to hold it all. Before it properly carries him away, he pushes it back, fights against it to stay awake.

“So you’re all right with this.”

“If you are,” Matt says, genial and patient. “You only just started to get comfortable with our arrangement. Maybe that means it’s okay for you to move on now.”

“I’m not—it’s just that…”

“He didn’t mean that you’d be moving _on_ ,” Karen supplies, helping him. “He meant, like moving ahead.”

Matt nods. “That’s what I meant. Thank you.”

“And hey,” Foggy adds, “you know where to find us, right? A. Tower’s a hop, skip, and a jump from here. You’re practically just next door.”

Bucky allows it, lets their support weave through his doubts until all that’s left is their encouragement. It takes him a few hours to text Tony with their decision, that he can pick Bucky up later in the evening after he’s had a chance to pack. Tony replies back straight away.

**Stark (12:39 PM)**  
**Glad 2 hear it Barnes :)**

He texts Wilson next and lets him know what’s set to go down at the end of the day. They go through a few exchanges before Wilson’s offering to bring dinner. Bucky asks Matt if he cares and passes on his permission to Wilson. The day drags on a bit after that, but it’s a good thing. More excitement is hardly what he needs. To smooth the hours over, he sits in a quiet corner and re-reads Matt’s Thurgood Marshall speeches.

They all three leave the office early to go back with him to Matt’s. Foggy and Karen break out some small boxes they carried over from the office. Matt digs a well-worn backpack out of his closet. Bucky fills the backpack first. Almost all his clothes, tightly rolled and folded, fit inside.

His bulkier pairs of jeans occupy the bottom of a smaller box. A tube of toothpaste and other such hygienic essential squeeze into a front pouch on the backpack. In the interest of saving space, he decides he’ll just wear the beautiful leather jacket Karen and Wilson picked out for him his first week out of prison.

When he’s satisfied that he’s got everything he needs between a stuffed backpack and a lightweight box, Karen starts folding one of the blankets Bucky regularly sleeps with. Mortified, he objects.

“Come on, I don’t need that.”

“It’s your favorite,” Matt insists, coming around to touch a frayed corner of the wool Pendleton blanket. “You know I’ve got enough to spare.”

Bucky bites his cheek. Matt knows Bucky favors the tangerine mug at Nelson & Murdock; of _course_ he knows which blanket Bucky prefers.

Blushing probably, Bucky says, “I’m pretty sure there’s gonna be blankets over there.”

“You don’t have to take it. I thought I’d offer.”

Matt tips his head and sits on the edge of the bed, still holding his hand over the corner of the soft gray blanket—the soft gray blanket that Bucky knows smells like Matt and this apartment even after it’s been washed; the blanket he’s pulled over his head on nights he woke up before Matt got back home after being Daredevil; the one he sometimes just touches because he likes the texture of it.

Making sure not to swear aloud, Bucky sighs and throws his hands and acts supremely put out by everything. He does still manage to see the smile tugging at Matt’s lips, though.

Wilson turns up right about then with the food. Bucky has to look at the bag to be sure, but judging from the familiar smell, it’s the same place he went to for tacos when they ate together in the warehouse. Since they sit down to eat together, they all get to witness the spectacular event of Wilson’s shameless flirting with Foggy. Matt and Karen drink beer and fail utterly at hiding their amusement when Foggy flirts right back and reduces Wilson to a stammering mess. It’s pretty great. 

Bucky doesn’t go out of his way to contribute to the conversation. It’s enough that his friends are here with him, getting along. He’s disappointed when they get through the food because that just means there’s nothing keeping him from being on his merry way.

He ducks back into Matt’s room to gather up his things, and Karen follows in after him. She grabs the Bucky Bear off the nightstand, smiling and giving it a little wave in his direction.

“What do you think?”

He thinks his heart must be in his throat for how hard it is to swallow in that moment. In lieu of saying that, Bucky makes room for the bear in a valley between two pairs of jeans. The placement won’t allow for it to be dislodged easily, and tucking the blanket back in over the top adds a final layer of security. He straps the backpack on, clips it together in the front once he notices the buckles, and gets the box in hand.

“Okay, I guess you’re ready.” Karen beams at him, looking excited but also sad. “If you ever need anything, or if you remember you left something behind, just call us. Even if you don’t need anything, you can call, or text.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

They stare at each other for a moment and Karen’s blue eyes go a little glassy. She steps around the box and hugs him. He moves it over to hold it in one hand against his hip and hugs her back.

“You’re gonna be fine.”

“I’m gonna be fine.”

“And I’ll miss you, but I’m gonna be fine, too.”

“You’re gonna be fine, too.”

“And I’ll miss you,” Karen repeats, pulling back to raise one eyebrow at him.

A laugh startles out of him. “And you’ll miss me. I’ll miss you, too.”

It’s not even a big deal, but it feels like a tremendous change; like it’s just the start of a long chain of things that twist and transform and don’t ever stay the same. But he looks at Karen who’s never once doubted the best parts of his character, and for a tiny moment, he’s not worried of losing her.

Karen laughs and turns with him to the door. “You’ll miss me, too.” 

They walk into the hallway together, Karen neatly poised at his elbow how she always is, and overhear Matt listing off numbers.

“Seven, three, four—don’t make me come over there.”

Bucky frowns and looks around, catching the shape of Wilson’s thumbs and middle fingers just before he drops his hands to his sides. He clears his throat.

“Yeah, what he said.”

“Heh, it’s all in good fun?”

“What’s the ETA on Tony?” Bucky asks, shaking his head at Wilson.

“Any minute now,” Foggy tells him. “I texted him about five minutes ago.”

Bucky shifts the box in his hands and shrugs so the backpack rustles across his shoulders.

“Something wrong?” Matt stands where he’s been perched on the edge of the couch.

“Just nervous about going back.”

“Imagine them in their underwear,” Wilson suggests in a bright voice. “That’s supposed to help, right? Usually makes me _more_ nervous, but it might help you.”

“What exactly are you nervous about?” Foggy asks, staring bemusedly at Wilson.

“That they’ll fall in love with me, of course. Have you _seen_ this bod?”

Karen sputters a laugh and Matt shakes his head, battling a smirk. Bucky also has to laugh, mostly because of the conflicted expression on Foggy’s face that Wilson just preens under.

A knock comes at the door and Karen goes with him to answer it. Tony’s standing on the front step in jeans and a t-shirt, keys swinging lazily around his pointer finger. He doesn’t smile but his eyes light up when he sees Bucky and then when he sees Karen.

“Ah, Ms. Page! Friendly neighborhood girlfriend-stealer. It’s no wonder you and Romanov get along so well. Barnes, all set?”

“What?” He looks at Karen and at her modest smile. “Oh. Yeah, I’m good to go.”

“ _One_ box? Bud, is that you got? We are _so_ taking you shopping, Pepper and me.”

“He’s got a library in the bottom of my closet,” Matt says, appearing at Bucky’s side like a noiseless specter. 

“That makes me feel slightly better.” Tony waves for Bucky to follow him. “There’s a shelf in the room I made up for you. It’s empty—figured you’d want to decide for yourself what goes up there. If you wanna come back for you closet library, just let me know.”

Bucky slides the box and the backpack into the backseat of Tony’s flashy black car. He turns around to say temporary goodbyes and hugs the four people waiting on him. Wilson hugs him hard and ruffles his hair. Foggy pats his back and tells him to check in when he can. Matt and Karen hug him at the same time, Karen turning at the last second to kiss him on the cheek. When Bucky turns an expectant look on Matt, Matt raises his eyebrows.

“Oh, I’m not kissing you.”

“I’ll kiss you, tin man.” And Wilson does, a quick, gentle peck right on Bucky’s forehead. “What do you think—Buckypool? Not gonna lie, I really like DeadWinter, but I’d get it if you weren’t feeling it.”

“DeadWinter does have a nice ring to it,” Bucky admits, turning to the car.

Tony’s leant up against the driver’s door with a soft expression on his face. Bucky firmly ignores it and walks around the front of the car to the passenger’s side. He pulls the door open.

“Call us, Bucky, we mean it,” Karen tells him over the roof of the car.

“Yeah, I will, don’t worry.”

He waves to the lot of them and slides into the seat, closing the door behind him. Tony pushes off the car and approaches Matt while Bucky watches through the window. His ears strain to listen over the barrier of glass, the rest of his body slowing down to accommodate his heightened level of focus.

“He’s trusting us and you, Tony,” Matt’s telling him.

“I know he is,” Tony says. “We’ll take care of him, Matt. Don’t sweat it.”

Bucky fiddles with his seatbelt and sets trembling hands in his lap before Tony gets back in the car. He’s all dry humor and winsome sarcasm to Bucky’s thawing ice. Not for a second does Tony act like he’s even peripherally aware of his companion’s distance. He keeps up the idle stream of chatter until they pull up to the tower. Tony offers to carry something for him, but Bucky just balances it all out like he had before and follows after him with the backpack clipped at his chest and the box in his hands.

They go up to a different floor than the one with the rest of the living quarters. Bucky surmises that this is so he has privacy to scream and throw things and prowl the halls without disturbing his roommates.

There’s no evidence to suggest that he’s wrong, but Tony doesn’t mention anything contrary to keeping him isolated from the herd. He shouldn’t actually have to since his actions up to this point only imply that he believes Bucky would benefit most from being around people, especially—Bucky glances at a door distinctly emblazoned with a shield as they walk past it—Steve. He stops walking and glares at Tony.

“Yes, Grumpy Cat?”

Some of Bucky’s indignation sparks out, thinking back on when Wilson used that nickname for him.

“Is this Steve’s room?”

“Oh, that. Yeah, he sleeps here, sometimes. He’s not in there _now_ , if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Bucky sighs and doesn’t push. He just falls back in step with Tony and stomps into a room when he’s waved in. Obviously it’s not even on the same floor as the room he woke up in earlier, but he can’t help but be glad to see that it also physically looks different—softer colors and more furniture littered about to contrast with the previous setup. He sets his box of stuff on the floor and inspects the room’s layout.

There’s an air duct over the door that feeds east and west if Bucky has to resort to extreme measures for escape. A panel on the door connects him to the rest of the tower and to J.A.R.V.I.S., whose voice, Tony assures him, has been disabled in this room unless Bucky actively toggles it back on. In the event of an emergency, J.A.R.V.I.S. is programmed to override the muted setting, but that’s only if the building’s on fire or there’s a security breach or something to that effect.

The window’s only an option if he breaks it, and with enough determination, he’s sure he could manage it. Tony sees him testing his strength against the glass and directs his attention to a red button beneath the window pane. He says it opens from the inside only. Even then, Bucky needs to pop open the interlock to get it to budge. 

Satisfied with the possible exits listed off in his head, he turns his eye on the decor itself. The bed is a single, slightly smaller than Matt’s. There’s a large shelf taking up one wall. Bucky tests the solid weight of it in his hands and pushes it closer to the wall across from him. He leaves enough of a space that he could potentially knock it over on top of an intruder without being taken down with it. Tony watches him do this, seemingly entertained, if exasperated, in Bucky’s determination to destroy the room.

“Really gotta consider every permutation of attack, don’t you?”

“A priest let me scope out his church once.” Bucky shrugs, stepping away from the bookshelf. “He understood.”

“No, I get it, I do. It’s nothing I haven’t seen from Barton and Romanov. You spy types are all the same.”

“Makes sense.”

“You gonna be all right if I leave you to it, Barnes? Nelson said you ate. You still hungry?”

“No, I’m all right.”

“Well, kitchen’s a floor down. Banner and I are a floor up. Steve’s to your left. Sam’s across from him.”

Bucky sits on the edge of the bed and unclips the backpack buckle. Tony’s gaze flits down to catalog the action.

“You really are adorable, aren’t you, Barnes?”

_I’m dangerous and I’ve killed people. I killed your parents. Howard swerved to miss me and your mother died on impact, but he saw me. He was trying to say my name when I rigged the car to blow. It had to look like an accident. He was trapped and I put him there, and I didn’t know, I didn’t know…_

“Bathroom’s down the hall,” Tony tells him. “Just buzz if you need one of us.”

His voice croaks. “Sure, Tony.”

The door closes behind him after he leaves. Bucky bounces aimlessly on the edge of the bed for four or five minutes, floating in between unhappy revelations and discomfiting silence.

It’s impossible to convince himself that he made the right call in coming here. He’s caused too much pain. He _will_ cause so much more, he just knows it. Tony’s happy to have Bucky nearby for safekeeping, probably, but that doesn’t change that he’s never truly going to be safe anywhere. No one can protect him from himself, much as they try.

Rationally speaking, he can identify the reasons they’d all have for wanting him close. Sam can take him running in the mornings; Natasha can investigate his curiosity and air out her own in the process; the twins can get a proper look at him and see if they still deem him worthy of their confidence.

But Steve.

Bucky can’t think about whether he’s onboard with his decision or if he thinks it’s a colossally bad idea. Clearly, Steve agreed to their rooms being so close. _Sam_ agreed to their rooms being so close.

If anyone thought Bucky being around might be bad for Steve, they wouldn’t have put it on the table so long ago when Tony started designing this room. Bucky’s fairly confident that if this recent clash of theirs does manage to become problematic for one or both of them, that Steve will extract himself from the situation. Of course he would if it meant leaving this shelter and its resources intact for Bucky.

And Bucky _knows_ that, self-loathing notwithstanding. It’s just a fact that he can’t reverse.

As far as he can intrinsically weigh any piece of information in his mind as knowledge, the naked truth is that Steve is constant like Karen is constant. He won’t do anything to jeopardize Bucky, and just as much as Bucky will hurt himself to keep Steve from feeling more pain than he has to, Steve does the same for him.

So Bucky can’t think about Steve’s reaction to Bucky moving in. It would assume too much and it wouldn’t communicate enough and it would tell him everything but nothing. There’s no right or wrong answer. Bucky doesn’t trust himself to come to a passable conclusion about any of it.

“Hey,” Steve says, standing in the doorway of _Bucky’s room_ in _Avenger’s Tower_. “Sorry. I knocked. I don’t know if you heard me.”

Bucky wonders if he fell asleep or if he just slid out of focus while chasing strains of logic in his thoughts. It was dark already when Tony guided him into this room, so the light from outside is no indication of whether he’s been here for five minutes or five hours. He needs a watch. Or a timer on his phone, maybe.

“I didn’t,” Bucky rumbles, rooting around in his jacket pocket for his phone. “Sorry.”

He shrugs off the backpack and his jacket and stands to set his phone on the bedside table. His hands hang limp but jittery at his sides. Steve hovers in the doorway still like he’s afraid to get any closer.

Bucky could never blame him for that, but it’s still a punch in the gut and probably will be every time it happens. He expects it’ll happen often and that worries him mostly because he doesn’t think he’ll ever be ready for how it tears holes in his chest. A small part of him anguishes even more over this certainty because he can’t imagine how Steve would react to causing him even a small amount of pain.

He’d treat it like it was his fault. Steve would apologize for it again and again and he’d blame himself like he already does. Bucky knows that, too. Knows they’re both overfull with anger and disappointment; that it’s all pointed inward and that the weight and force of it is undeniable, always.

“Buck?”

“Huh?”

“I was askin’ if I should go. You look kinda rattled. We can talk later.”

“That’s just my face,” Bucky mumbles, wrapping his arms around himself. It’s the truth as far as he can tell. He’s seen what he looks like—how he’s hardly dropped the stony veneer of distance that he’s worn since Matt first found him on the docks. “Stay, please.”

“Okay.”

They stand a while in the noisy quiet for a few minutes not looking at each other. Bucky rocks slightly on his heels, torn between stepping closer and turning away.

“I’m sorry about it,” he whispers, staying right where he is. “Don’t tell me I shouldn’t be.”

For a moment, Steve just looks at Bucky like that’s all that he’s capable of doing. He finally tears his gaze away, jaw straining beneath skin, and expels a slow, quiet breath.

“Then don’t tell me not to forgive you.”

Bucky closes his eyes and sighs, “Steve.” 

“…Since I did, pretty much the moment it happened.”

“I don’t…” _deserve it_ goes unsaid. “—understand.”

“You do, Buck. Better than I could explain it.”

“I attacked you.”

“You sucker-punched me. That’s all it was. I shouldn’t’ve had my hands on you before you remembered where you were. Shouldn’t’ve been touching you in the first place. How is that your fault when I’m the one who was supposed to know better?”

“No. I saw your face before Wanda took me down. I _saw_ you, Steve. You had that look on your face, like your whole world busted open.”

“So did you,” Steve counters, helpless, desperate. “I was lookin’ at you.”

Bucky shakes his head, heart beginning to race in his chest. Steve’s telling him he did nothing wrong. He’s saying he found a way to pin it on himself, again. The part of Bucky that believes he’s a victim wants to give in straight away and accept what Steve is telling him. The part of him covered forever in gun callouses and ugly scars won’t let either of them have the satisfaction. It hisses and kicks to get out from behind his ribs.

“When are you gonna get sick of stickin’ up for me?”

“What?”

“What do I have to do? I raze D.C., you try to save me; I nearly kill you, you follow me; I _hit_ you…this, I can’t—why do you let me do this to you?”

Steve looks down, at a loss for words, and Bucky’s shaking like he was the first time they met up again in Hell’s Kitchen, already losing steam and crumbling in on himself. It’s like he can’t break down often enough in a single 24-hour period. All that’s left is for him to cry.

“You didn’t mean it,” Steve insists, all warm conviction and unbreakable faith. “Every time that you’ve made me fight you, ever, it wasn’t you.”

Bucky looks at him, devastated.

“Don’t you get that?” Steve asks him. Heartbreak shivers over his stonily resolute face.

“No.”

And quite all at once, Bucky is small and tired and buried in a mountain of all the things that have hurt him in his long time alive. He’s trapped under it all and has been this whole time and Steve is there holding his hand out to help Bucky climb up out of it. Steve walks a little closer and Bucky doesn’t startle away from him.

“Bucky, think about it, okay? You hate bullies. You could never be one.”

“I hate bullies,” Bucky echoes, unsure because Steve rarely ever presents past-facts about Bucky as present-facts.

“Literally everybody sees how you are with Wade, Bucky. He’s a trained mercenary, but you still bare your teeth at anyone who might hurt his feelings.”

“I’m not supposed to defend my friends?” Bucky snaps.

“Of course you are.” Steve bites his lip for a moment. “Matt told me how you were at the press conference after the trial, when I said how unhappy I was and everyone started taking pictures. Matt told me. He said he had to hold you back so you wouldn’t run in and rescue me.”

Bucky sighs through his nose. “Goddamn it, Murdock.”

Steve smiles small at his embarrassment, but he doesn’t let himself be distracted by it.

“I’m not _going_ to get sick of sticking up for you. Frustrated? To tell the truth, yeah. But never because I think you need to be doing more, Bucky. You’re doing everything you can.”

“You get frustrated with yourself,” Bucky clarifies, interrupting him to hold onto that idea.

“Yeah, I do.”

“You blame yourself.”

“Yeah,” Steve sighs. “I do.”

“But it’s no one’s fault.”

Steve shakes his head, flopping his hands uselessly. “Sam says it’s ‘coz of survivor’s guilt.”

Grinding his teeth in his mouth, Bucky says, “You didn’t survive. If anything, you tried _not_ to survive.”

“Some people call me the First Avenger,” Steve tells him in a small, small voice, kicking a little at the eggshell blue carpet.

Bucky watches him and processes what he’s said, this gem of information, and his heart falls through the floor. Angry tears prick in his eyes. He’s done such a good job of not crying in front of Steve—of breaking his _habit_ of crying in front of Steve when they’re alone together—but it’s all going kaput right here over a stupid confession that he’s known all along. It just kills him to hear Steve own up to it.

He wants to hug him more than anything. If it could somehow be enough to fix the gnawing gap between them, he’d stay hugging Steve forever. He might hug Steve forever anyway, but his feet stay glued to the carpet, heart pounding behind his sternum as a memory flickers at the back of his mind.

“You’re a punk.”

Steve’s gaze jumps right up to his, full of hope and longing as per usual. The corner of his mouth twitches, threatening a fat tear to spill over his cheek. He whispers, “Jerk.”

And Bucky laughs and Steve catches on that he can’t move, so he moves for both of them. He takes a few cautious steps closer and wraps Bucky up in a hug. It hits him like a ton of bricks that he’s been viewing himself as someone who doesn’t deserve this privilege, as someone who could never deserve to be treated with kindness by Steve. It hits him even harder that the only one with any right to decide how Steve ought to act is Steve. Bucky shudders hard in Steve’s hold and Steve just wraps around him tighter, not letting go. 

“I don’t know how to protect you anymore,” he gasps, trying not to wail through his tears even if they do have this floor mostly to themselves. “What am I if I can’t protect you?” 

“My friend.” Steve’s straining to sound coherent, too, but he’s not weeping like Bucky is weeping. “You’re my friend.”

The last time they held each other like this, they both cried. It’s different now. They’re not holding each other up and relying on their mutual vulnerability for strength; Bucky’s broken down and sagging until he’s just deadweight on Steve’s shoulders. And Steve’s taking him; he’s standing for both of them.

He’s whispering those words, “You’re my friend. You don’t have to protect me. I’ve got you.”

“It’s not fair.”

Bucky shakes, distraught. Of course it isn’t fair. He never could have reasonably expected it to be, to him or to Steve or to anyone. But it’s the miserable truth of his situation. Protecting Steve is intrinsic to who Bucky is, to who he was. If he can’t cling to that basic truth, then he’s lost. He’s an untethered satellite drifting in the darkness.

Steve’s fingers curl at his back, fisting in the cotton of his shirt and pulling him back from the ether. The words Bucky keeps saying get mashed into Steve’s shoulder. He’s not even aware of them forming again and again on his lips. They’re just there, gushing forth and blurring where Steve’s body stops them.

“I know it’s not, I know. I’m sorry. I know.”

The absolute bitch of it is that Steve does know. He can’t _not_ believe that the world has done wrong by him, even if he wasn’t the one taken and abused and crafted into a weapon. The world still took him from his girl; still forced his hand when goddamn _aliens_ came to New York; still held his best friend, mangled and barely recognizable, over his head and just out of reach.

Still made Bucky a part of it. Made him a part of the joke that Steve’s been the butt of for far too long.

He turns his face and makes himself breathe, focusing hard on bringing new words to the surface. Steve mistakes Bucky’s movement for pulling away and starts to let go, but Bucky isn’t ready for that yet. His hands spasm and the muscles in his back strain, stress and weakness making him reach out for Steve.

“All right, you’re okay, Buck,” Steve’s murmuring, hushing the pained little noises Bucky makes. “You’re all right. I got you, it’s okay.”

Maybe that’s just as important if not more so than Bucky’s need to provide cover for Steve. He was small once, but even then, he insisted on doing all the fighting himself; insisted on his independence and self-sufficiency. Bucky was the one who needed rescuing between them. Bucky _is_ the one who needs rescuing, and rehabilitation. If Steve has him and that’s all he can count on Bucky to give him for the foreseeable future, maybe that’s enough.

“Okay,” Bucky starts saying instead. “Okay.”

There’s a hand in his hair, soothing him. Steve’s other hand rubs circles into his back, grazing with fingertips through Bucky’s shirt or bearing down at odd intervals. The impression of a palm aligned over Bucky’s spine alerts him to the rush of air passing through his lungs. He narrows his concentration down to his body’s core, focuses on the contraction and expansion of his lungs, and slows himself down by degrees.

His hand aches when he loosens the fist he’d made around a wad of Steve’s shirt. The left hand, thankfully also closed around unfeeling fabric, unclenches with an audible creak. Bucky winces, but the arms enclosing him in safety and comfort don’t let up. Steve maybe remembers that Bucky recoiled when he tried to release him before. He doesn’t want to startle Bucky again; doesn’t want him to think he’s being dismissed before he can willingly disentangle from the mess of arms they’ve made.

“Steve?” he whispers, looking down at their feet. “You really forgive me?”

“Yeah, I really do.” His voice sounds clear, not wrecked and thready like Bucky’s. He’s strong and steadfast, like he’s always been. “For everything, I do.”

“You oughta forgive yourself, too, then,” Bucky murmurs once he finds that he can. “That’d be the fair thing.”

Steve huffs, sounding like he tried to laugh but gave up partway through. Bucky looks up, and sure enough, the expression on Steve’s face is conflicted. He’s warring with himself over how to answer; can’t yet stomach denying Bucky anything he asks, but can’t stomach lying to him either.

“I might need help,” he admits around the grim line of his mouth.

“Come on, you’re an old hand at forgiveness.” Bucky raises his eyebrows, wary of his twitching facial muscles and the damage his tears have wrought on his cheeks, his chin, the slope beneath his jaw. “Just look at me.”

“I’m looking.”

“I don’t blame you is what I’m saying. Nobody blames you. Pretty much the only person who’s ever thought to blame you is you.”

With one eyebrow creeping up toward his hairline, Steve muses, “Well, when you say it like that, it sounds really familiar.”

Bucky musters the levity to execute an eye roll. “Wise guy.”

“Hey, you said it.”

“And I mean it, all right?” Bucky mumbles, looking away. His voice drops into a softer tone, something fragile and close to breaking. “I mean it, Stevie. Stop…carrying this cross like it’s gonna undo what happened to us.”

“What about you?” Steve asks, gentle and earnest.

Bucky sighs and unwinds one arm from around Steve’s back to massage his eyelids. He’s overwhelmed and tired, but his body is steadily resupplying the adrenaline he’s just expended. It leaves him unbalanced, reeling at the unnatural climb from zero to one hundred.

“I don’t know about me.”

It’s probably the single most honest statement that Bucky has uttered in reference to himself since Steve woke him up on the helicarrier. Bucky remembers more and more every day. Newly formed opinions roll in as frequently as his nostalgia for yesterday. The pain eating at him is circuitous. It runs on a loop but feeds out to a thousand shifting exits, hurting him in myriad ways.

Steve watches Bucky’s face like if he looked long enough, he would understand the whole of the universe. He doesn’t think Steve looked at him like this when they were young. Probably they just didn’t know how to tap that depth of emotion and appreciation for each other, for anyone, yet. 

They’d lost their parents and Bucky had lost Rebecca and he had nearly lost Steve to a number of illnesses and injuries, but there had never been this severity in their awareness of the other’s mortality before the war. Gradually, tenderness became a bruised, snarling animal because that was merely what war did. It transformed them.

Even still, this thing breathing inside them when they look at each other is heavier. It’s like an anchor that weighs his heart down with his body. It’s the pulse beating alive and electric in his blood.

He supposes maybe that’s just how the mind and the heart react to the sort of hardships they’ve endured.

It’s the naive explanation but the easiest to compartmentalize. Everything takes a backseat to his frantic, scrambling efforts to patch his head back together whenever he falls apart like this. There isn’t room in his chest for what they are, for what Steve means to him, or for what Steve has always meant to him.

But he takes some comfort from the fact that there doesn’t really need to be a name for the lengths they have gone to save each other. Steve broke through decades of mind control to tell Bucky he wasn’t alone.

He’s got his arms wrapped around Bucky now and Bucky’s not running away. It’s something.

They couldn’t have done anything remotely like this a year ago, two years ago. Even immediately after Bucky’s memories started to flood back with the clear intent of drowning him, they could not have done this. Words were dangerous and touch was unknown. Bucky squeezes Steve’s arm near his shoulder, honing in on every fine sensation that comes with it just because he can. Because they have arrived at this point after much hemming and hawing, and both of them believing that they couldn’t have it, couldn’t seize it with their hands.

“What if I forgave you?” Bucky asks in a voice that’s like extracted notes from a music box—oddly sonorous but disjunct and out of time, emphasis falling on the wrong syllables. “What if I forgave you for everything?”

A knit appears in between Steve’s eyebrows. The perfect tiny wrinkle stands in like a fulcrum beneath the smooth expanse of his forehead, or even like Atlas holding up the world.

Bucky continues at Steve’s owlish blinking: “You wouldn’t even really have to apologize. I already know you’re sorry that I got taken. You said so when I was locked up. You said you should’ve found me, that you shouldn’t have given up. Well, I forgive you.”

Steve’s mouth falls open, but still he seems speechless.

“And you think it’s your fault that I freaked out yesterday even though I guess it was technically more of an accident than anything else. I forgive you for that, too. I forgive you for the thing with sending Wilson out ahead of the Avengers. You didn’t even know why I was upset about that and you apologized.”

He racks his brain for a big one while Steve is still in the process of trying to come up with a response. The one he comes up with makes his heart sink and his stomach uneasy.

“I forgive you for _not jumping after me on the train_ , you idiot.”

“Buck,” Steve says, strangled and finding at least one word to start.

“In what world, Steve? In what world is that something that you ever owe it to me to be sorry about?”

Bucky could probably go on in this fashion for hours and steadily gain momentum, but he stops short at the ashen pallor that falls over Steve’s face. There’s tension in his jaw and down his neck, a stricken glint darkening his eyes.

“I…”

“They would’ve just hurt us both. Is that what you think you deserve?”

He carefully doesn’t reply, with words. Bucky can see the answer written plain as day on his face. He shakes his head, but all the anger has gone out of him.

_Oh, Stevie._

Steve looks down at his feet and starts to release the firm hold he’s had on Bucky all this time. Bucky doesn’t fight him, so he gets free easily and takes a step back. He clears his throat, Bucky’s tears staining his nice blue shirt.

“I should…help you unpack.”

Bucky looks at his box of stuff and at the backpack, going hollow in all the places that went cold when Steve let go of him. He thinks to send Steve away, but neither of them really want to separate just now while they’re still so raw. Steve stays and removes the wool blanket from the box while Bucky places his shirts in a random drawer. He turns at some point to fetch his jeans and sees Steve with the Bucky Bear, holding it in both hands and appraising it with a thoughtful expression.

When he realizes he’s being stared at, he turns to look at Bucky and holds the bear closer to his body, painting a less attentive picture than he was moments ago. Bucky breaks their eye contact first and collects his jeans from the box so he can tuck them in alongside his shirts. Steve lays the folded blanket on top of Bucky’s pillow and sits the bear up in front of it.

His toiletries stay in the backpack for now. All that’s left is his copy of _The Fox and the Hound_ that someone must have hidden in between his jeans while he was stuffing his clothes into the backpack. He carries it to the shelf and reconsiders, taking it instead to the bedside table. Steve watches him.

“All set?”

“Yeah, guess so.”

“Okay. I’m down the hall if you need me.”

“The door with the shield,” Bucky says.

“That’s the one.”

“I’ll remember.”

They stare at each other and Bucky’s fingers twitch.

“As harsh as I am to myself, that’s what you look like to me.”

Steve doesn’t move or speak. His eyes get wider and shiny, but he doesn’t react otherwise.

“I forgive you for everything. Whether you apologize for it or not. Whether I think you _need_ to apologize or not.”

With a loud swallow, Steve tells him, “Thank you.”

Bucky blinks, turns away, and counts to ten before stepping forward to hug him again. “Goodnight, Steve.”

“Goodnight, Bucky.”

He sleeps on top of the blankets with Matt’s blanket for a pillow and his jacket strewn over his torso to keep the cold at bay. The Bucky Bear hovers in the vicinity of his face because that’s simply where Steve left it. When he wakes, he’s surprisingly calm but predictably stiff. He slept like a corpse curled up on his side. It’s hardly astounding that he feels like an accordion glued shut.

There’s nothing on the agenda as far as he knows. He doesn’t meet with Samson for another few days. It takes him a moment to understand that the reason he’s awake is that someone was knocking on his door. Sam’s waiting for him when he rolls out of bed and cracks the door open just enough to see through.

“Oh,” he mumbles, turning around to look for his shoes.

Sam laughs at him and gives him a chance to brush his teeth and change. They go running their route from the day before, even stopping at the same tree. Bucky tells him about his talk with Steve, half as a test to see if Steve will have told Sam any of it and half because he’s curious what Sam might say. Sam’s probably the most well-adjusted of any of them, so his opinion means a lot to Bucky. He consciously doesn’t react to what Bucky says; only nods his head to show that he’s listening and pauses to mull it over once Bucky’s done explaining.

“Good for you, Barnes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said. Good for you. Steve told me before he went to see you that he was gonna try and clear the air, but he didn’t let me know it went down like that. Couldn’t have been an easy conversation for either of you.”

“It wasn’t.” Bucky shrugs. “There’s not much left for us to talk about that’s easy.”

“Alton Brown’s easy,” Sam corrects him, not to be contrary but to be supportive. 

“Easy isn’t enough.”

“No, no, it wouldn’t be, would it? I hear that.”

“He says he has survivor’s guilt.”

Sam’s deceptively lighthearted demeanor closes off. “You watch your best friend die, that can happen to you.”

Bucky remembers his cloying nightmares, how he’s seen himself killing Steve and how he’s hated himself for it. It’s not the same thing. He hates himself because he’s a murderer, because he had no choice. He doesn’t hate himself because he lives. Pushing onward in spite of the pain is part and parcel to his survival. When he wishes for death, it’s because he’s seen how people have made him into a monster.

“I don’t understand,” Bucky confesses because he doesn’t.

And Sam, against all odds, opens up again. He knocks down the short-lived walls and tells Bucky a story without flourishes and with hardly any hope at all. The shining sun of Sam Wilson clouds over so he can explain to Bucky how much it can hurt to be alive—not for being too dangerous, but for not being dangerous enough, to the right people. For not being fast enough to prevent chaos, to prevent loss. He explains guilt that is comparable to Bucky’s guilt but so wholly different, it’s almost like another language altogether.

They get back to the tower around noon for lunch. Sam smiles and chats freely while Bucky listens, morose and trying so hard not to be. If Sam can smile through the daily ritual of his pain, then Bucky can wear a brave face for merely having an approximation of it in his mind. He can look at Steve and exchange a casual greeting with him without impulsively yanking him into an embrace for the purpose of reassuring him.

Bucky remembers that he had once been told of Steve’s death. It happened early on in his captivity and the news hadn’t stuck for long, but they hadn’t needed it to stay with him. They’d told him to be cruel, to break his hope and discourage further resistance. And it worked.

The edges of the memory are hazy from ice and electric shock, but he can recall that there hadn’t been enough of him there when they told him to mourn. There’d been enough of him there to sag and give up, which is what they wanted. He had been present enough to think to himself, in an exhausted moment of clarity, _I can go then. I can go if he’s gone._

Was _that_ survivor’s guilt, he wonders.

Those few minutes or hours or days when some part of him knew that he was alive and Steve was dead? That brief stretch of time when he was reconciled with death _not_ because the world would be undeniably better without him but because there was no reason to fight if Steve couldn’t anymore?

No, he thinks.

Guilt was not an emotion he experienced. Defeat dwelled inside of him. Surrender was a concept long-internalized. Weariness, suffering, and dread were constants. Rage, too. He never felt survivor’s guilt—guilty in general, yes—but he can’t relate to what Steve, or Sam, struggle with everyday, and this distinction is an important one for him to make.

For all that they have been through this hell together, his difficulties are uniquely his own and Steve’s difficulties are uniquely his own. One category of pain does not outweigh or discount the other. They are two types of hurt, no less real for what they represent.

Bucky can’t forgive it. It is not one of those phantoms that he has power in him to release.

Tony catches him sulking on a balcony outside a fancier suite with a bar attached to it. He admits to searching for Bucky via surveillance footage when asked, but he doesn’t own up to having watched Bucky for a time before coming to investigate in person.

He wonders if Tony has survivor’s guilt; if he carries it for his parents daily or if perhaps there is someone else in his life that he could not protect. The topics of Stark Industries and weapons manufacturing had come up briefly at the trial in regards to Tony’s motivation for helping Bucky. Tony had mentioned that sometimes weapons could fall into the wrong hands and that maybe the best solution was to stop making such dangerous weapons in the first place.

If he inherited a legacy of violence how Bucky’s inherited the Winter Soldier, maybe survivor’s guilt is a given. Maybe it’s a normalized extension of Tony’s existence—of Steve’s and Sam’s, too.

“That’s the window I was thrown out of,” Tony tells him, gesturing at the enormous sheet of glass. “Good times.”

Bucky doesn’t know if he’s impressed or if he feels bad for the guy. Surely it must make for a great story to tell at parties, to livelier audiences than his present company.

“You’ve got one hell of a setup here, Tony.”

“Which, the digs or the boyband?”

“Either. Both.”

“It is a charmed life.”

Bucky stares at his hands on the railing and curves his back to fully lean on it. Tony moves in closer and leans on the railing about a foot away.

“How was your first night?”

“Тихо.” He catches himself with a curt head shake and translates: “Quiet.”

“Good, good.”

“And also not quiet.”

“Quiet but not, huh?” Tony glances at him with narrowed eyes. “This a Russian thing? Am I gonna have to bring in Romanov?”

“Why’d you put us on the same floor?”

“You mean, why, other than the reasons I’ve already given?”

“I mean, did he ask? Or did you suggest it and then he agreed to it? What was the process?”

“The process,” Tony repeats like he doesn’t get why Bucky cares. “The process, okay, let’s see. Sam and Cap lived in D.C., everybody scattered like marbles following the leak, and you turned up in Manhattan just a stone’s throw from my humble abode. Didn’t really make sense for them to leave at that point. Wasn’t much left for them in D.C. and they were looking for you anyway, so that’s how they got _here_. As for why they’re on your floor, Matt told me a few months back that you’d do better if you weren’t on your own. So I asked who’d volunteer to keep you company, and Steve bit the bullet.”

“What about Sam?”

“It’s like you said,” Tony says with a grin. “Somebody’s gotta make sure the star spangled man wears his helmet.”

Bucky snorts. “Does Steve know you call him that?”

“Steve knows as much about me as he needs to know.”

“I’m sure.”

He looks out at the cloudless sky and scans the rooftops. They’re really high up, but the distant sounds of the city still grasp for them.

“Are you all right, Barnes?”

Tony’s face is serious when Bucky looks at him. He thinks of weapons and survivor’s guilt and forgiveness. Atonement.

“I’m workin’ on it.”

“As long as you keep at it,” Tony cedes, nodding.

“That’s the idea, isn’t it?”

“With recovery, yeah.” In the unforgiving afternoon light, Tony looks ruffled and like he’s several days shy of a full night’s rest. “It drags on, if you let it.”

“So how do you keep it interesting?”

Tony glances over his shoulder and Bucky turns his head to follow his gaze. He only catches a glimpse of something gray cutting out of the corner of his sightline.

“One thing they do in group therapy is they get you to tell your story.”

“Really,” Bucky muses, still studying the spot where he’d seen the blur that must have been a full shape when Tony was looking.

“Oh, yeah. Supposed to be helpful. You know, gives you closure, perspective. Inspires the other person.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought about it.”

“Pepper made me see a shrink for about ten minutes,” Tony says, casually dismissive as he’s turning away from the railing. “Turns out you and I both know what it’s like to be held captive and tortured.”

Bucky stares after him, thinking and not moving. It’s only when Tony pauses in his walk to the door he’s left ajar that he says, “Is this you inspiring me with your story?”

Tony smirks at Bucky’s cheek. “Is there another reason I’d bring it up?”

Bucky follows him back into the suite and waits for Tony to slide the door closed behind them. “You ever have survivor’s guilt?”

“Yes,” Tony answers in a crisp, markedly detached tone. “Why?”

Not wanting to speak someone else’s truth as his own, he shrugs and hedges. “There’s been a lot of storytelling in my neck of the woods lately.”

“Huh.” Tony leads the way to the elevator. “Not all happy endings?”

“No endings. They start out okay. The problem’s in the middle parts.”

Tony waits for him to board the lift and presses a button for the floor where they typically play Monopoly. They ride down a few floors and Tony clears his throat.

“The journey matters as much as the destination.”

Bucky looks at him and waits out the rest of their gradual descent. He walks out onto their floor, not knowing what they’re doing until he sees Wanda sitting with Pietro and Clint. They’ve got sandwiches in front of them. Clint’s got coffee and a small dish stacked high with Nutter Butters. He’s thoroughly distracted by the sight of the cookies and only notices Tony retreating when he hears the elevator doors slink closed following the noise of quiet footsteps. 

“Are those to share?” Bucky asks because he’s subtle.

Clint looks up at him like he’s noticing Bucky for the first time and smiles. “If you mean these bad boys, help yourself.”

“Thanks.” Bucky stalks over and snatches a cookie, not sure what else to do.

“And with that,” Clint announces, downing what looks to be half a very large cup of coffee. “I need a refill. Behave, you two.”

Pietro smiles too innocently. Wanda watches Bucky and remains carefully blank.

Bucky looks at Clint and calls him a traitor with his eyes. Because he’s really just an all-around great guy, Clint laughs and scampers off.

“Uh.” Bucky tries not to scowl too openly. “Can I sit?”

“Please,” Wanda says, softening.

Pietro adamantly does not soften, but that’s fine. Bucky grabs another cookie and savagely eats it, content with being gawked at if that’s how it has to start. They’ve been gawking at him from afar for quite some time now. This time Bucky gets to eat cookies while they do it.

Never let it be said that he can’t compromise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doughnuts mmmm  
> http://doughnutplant.com/menu/


	4. Natasha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky talks to the twins, catches up with Natasha, and has emotions about a lot of things.

“So, everything okay?” Bucky asks after finishing the stack of cookies Clint left for him. 

Wanda’s sandwich sits untouched in front of her. Pietro has eaten half of his, but he hasn’t taken another bite since Bucky sat down.

“Is fine,” Pietro answers when Wanda makes no move to speak. “Everything with you okay?”

“Sure.”

They watch each other and Bucky actively tries to make the lines on his face smoother, less severe. He’s not trying to scare them, for Christ’s sake. If he’s being honest, he’s a little intimidated by _them_. It would take training and close observation to even begin to get a handle on how to fight one of them, much less both of them at once. He doesn’t really think they’ll try anything, but if they do, he doesn’t like his chances.

Pietro’s really the one Bucky doesn’t trust. Wanda made it abundantly clear that they only want to help, but her brother’s looking at Bucky now like he personally insulted him. Bucky reaches into his pocket for the sliver of metal he’s been carrying and lays it on the table in front of Wanda.

“You left that.”

And there it is. Pietro stiffens and glances from Bucky to the metal to Wanda. He mutters something in a language that’s close in sound to ukrayins’ka mova, and Wanda murmurs back. Bucky watches them.

“Strange I wasn’t taught your language,” he mumbles, drawing their attention. He raises his eyebrows at Pietro. “But you’ve got swears in common with the Ukrainians. You shouldn’t talk like that in front of your sister.”

Pietro doesn’t frown, but Wanda does.

She says, “He dislikes that I go near the suits.”

“Tony doesn’t seem to mind.”

“You don’t understand.” Pietro doesn’t elaborate.

Bucky touches the metal arm over his sleeve, feeling and remembering. “Guess not.”

He really doesn’t know much about the twins apart from what Clint’s told him. There’s no telling what they’ve heard about him or what exactly Wanda saw when she was in Wilson’s head. One thing he does know is that they’ve got some kind of beef with Tony that’s in no way Bucky’s concern.

After nearly a minute of silence, Pietro asks him, “How?”

“How what?”

Nodding at Bucky’s arm, he says, “Scientists?”

“Tony built it. Him, Bruce, and Pepper. I lost mine in a fall.”

“But before,” Wanda cuts in. “It was Hydra?”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs. This is how it starts. “They had to try a couple times to get what they wanted.”

Pietro’s eyebrows furrow. “What does that mean?”

Bucky clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair. He stands up and shoves his hands into his pockets.

“There somewhere else we can talk about it? I eat here, I don’t…I wanna be able to come back and eat and not remember that we talked about this.”

Wanda stands and Pietro follows after her. They share a quick glance, silently communicating faster than Bucky can even evaluate their expressions. Pietro nods and Wanda whisks off in the direction of the elevator. Bucky goes along with it, happy to let them choose if it keeps them all on the same page. They want to hear what he has to say, and maybe once he gets it all out, they’ll want to tell him something, too.

Pietro sneaks a few suspicious glances at him while Wanda plays with the sliver of metal Bucky returned to her. He doesn’t look quite as distrustful as he did before, which Bucky’s chalking up to the conversation they’re about to have. Still, he’s curious.

He locks eyes with Pietro. “We have a problem that I don’t know about?”

“You talked without me,” Pietro admits easily enough, unembarrassed that that’s the answer. Glancing at his sister, he adds, “Like adults who wait for children to leave until they speak.” 

“You were asleep,” Wanda tells him quietly.

They’ve discussed it to the point of it already feeling like an old wound, the two of them have. Pietro doesn’t even look angry. His increasingly resigned attitude suggests that his only concern is being left behind. Bucky’d tell him he doesn’t have to worry about that, but it wouldn’t mean anything coming from him.

As it is, he’s content to walk a few paces behind them into what looks to be one large training area. Bucky glances around at the free weights and exercise machines. There are padded safety mats spanning the floor and even one of the walls, colored a bright yellow that’s probably visible even in the dark. It’s deserted except for them. Sound doesn’t carry too well what with the muffled quality of the room, so their footsteps are comfortably quiet.

Wanda leads them to a window like the one Tony got thrown out of and sits right there on the floor. Pietro sits beside her and Bucky across from them. The light streams in through the huge sheet of glass, bright and bordering on hot. Bucky holds his hand out to let the sunbeams warm his palm.

“You were saying about tries,” Pietro reminds him, sounding and looking a lot more at ease now that he’s gotten the conflict off his chest. “Couple of them. What does it mean?”

“It means, uh, I remember having this much of my arm when I woke up the first time.” Bucky draws a line over his bicep. “And then this much, until—” He tugs his collar toward his shoulder to show them where metal meets skin. “They changed the design each time. Had to get the specs just right.”

Wanda meets his eyes when he looks up, but Pietro stares at his arm.

“It’s just the only part of it you can still see,” Bucky murmurs, aiming for a dismissive tone but not quite touching on the mark. “They did things…made _me_ do things—and none of it’s ever gonna square up. My head’s not right. They took that, too.”

They’re both openly studying him now. He can tell they’re more comfortable here than they were in the kitchen. Maybe they trust this part of the tower to offer them the most privacy since there’s less chance of accidental interruption. Bucky might not understand why they like it, but he’s into the quiet himself. He likes the clean utility of it and that they can sit here by the window with only their voices to fill up the space.

“Couldn’t’ve been easy what you went through,” he tries, offering them a chance to speak of themselves. “All the people I know with powers like you’ve got, they didn’t come by ‘em easy.”

“Experiments with genetic mutation.” Pietro offers the explanation like it’s been spoken around him countless times, the words recited neatly and dispassionately. He blinks, turning his thoughts inward for a moment to consider. “Many needles and bright lights.”

“They tried to separate us, once.”

“Did not end well for them,” Pietro says, watching his sister.

Bucky watches her, too. She looks between them and then out the window.

“I am not proud of hurting them.”

“Maybe you oughta be,” Bucky mumbles, waving a hand when they turn vaguely shocked looks at him. “They built us to hurt people; tore apart who we would’ve been so they could use us as weapons. But you fought back. You had something they couldn’t break and didn’t let them take it from you.”

“You fought back,” Wanda surmises, only half a question.

Shame gnaws at Bucky’s heart. “I tried.”

“You lost.”

“Pietro,” she hisses.

He barrels forward, unyielding but not unkind; simply intrigued. “Wanda saw how you lost.”

“Back to this?” Bucky refrains from rolling his eyes. “Can it, will ya? I don’t wanna hear about what you saw in Wilson’s dream.”

“Not his dream,” Pietro says. “Yours.”

Cold creeps up Bucky’s spine and edges in at the base of his neck. “What, are you telling everyone?”

“I didn’t say a word, I swear I didn’t.” Wanda’s frown fades and her eyes go a little wide. Slowly, dreading it as she turns to her brother, she says, “Not on purpose.”

“Is why I go fast and you move the world, I think,” Pietro muses, thoughtful and almost lighthearted about the words he uses. He’s perfectly at ease, either not seeing the tension around him or simply not caring. “Since coming here, there are bad dreams. You never mean to, Wanda. She never means to, you see? But there are bad dreams.”

Wanda expels a shaky breath and looks, for a moment, on the verge of tears. Bucky flicks his gaze back and forth between them, not comprehending.

He thinks, inexplicably, of how he’d called after Wilson that night in Harlem. How he shredded his voice and his lungs trying to be heard in a way that had nothing to do with volume but everything to do with intent. It can’t be the same thing as what’s happening here, but he gets a glimpse of the truth from Wilson’s capacity to break those rules anyway.

“You see the bad dreams,” he guess aloud in Pietro’s direction, but his gaze stays on Wanda.

“Yes.” Pietro nods. “By accident like she says. Not on purpose. Maybe because we are twins? Maybe is only way to hold it. I don’t know why. Happens on its own.”

“Why didn’t you say before?” she asks him, turning her body more exclusively toward Pietro.

“You didn’t,” he answers, an accusation. “You kept it from me, like I am a child.”

He still only sounds hurt, which is at least better than sounding angry. Bucky considers trying to flee before their confrontation escalates much further as he’s vastly out of his depth. He doesn’t get a chance.

“We destroy the world and you never tell me. I die and you never tell me. You take all of it.”

Wanda stares at Pietro for a long time, fingers tense around her knees to the point of whitening her knuckles. A tendon twitches in her neck and a scratching sound behind her distracts Bucky from the staring contest that’s happening two feet in front of him. He sucks in a slow, unnerved breath at the sight of the deepening crack in the window at Wanda’s back.

“Okay. I’m…not all right with this.” Bucky swallows tightly and gets to his feet. “You kids get your mess sorted somewhere less breakable. Tony’s loaded, but he’s not gonna be happy if you bust up all this nice stuff.”

Pietro finally notices the fracture lines rippling through the glass and backs off, reluctant even then. The sneaking off in the night to talk to Bucky behind his back must have just been the last straw for him. Clearly, he’s not used to his sister keeping secrets. Wanda’s about as good at dealing with the fallout as Pietro is. God help the both of them.

“Come on, away from the window,” Bucky instructs, keeping his voice light but authoritative.

Wanda spares it a glance and startles back. Pietro gets her shoulders under his arm straight away like they aren’t in the middle of a nasty argument about trust. Bucky waves for them to walk out ahead, leaving a good five feet between him and them. They ride the elevator to a floor he hasn’t been on yet and get out, not saying a word to him about where they’re going or why. He stares at his reflection on the elevator doors and rubs his hands over his face.

_You lost._

_Wanda saw how you lost._

He might have known that opening up to them wasn’t going to be without its pitfalls. When he thought about all the ways talking to them could go wrong, he always had himself pegged as the unpredictable variable in the equation. His mistake was that he didn’t factor in a possible conflict with the twins. They’d seemed solid. In his mind, they’re still solid.

On the floor where his room is, he rings up J.A.R.V.I.S., wary of the voice feature and hoping the interface will work without it. He taps the screen and buzzes around looking for Tony. Dr. Banner answers from his lab, Tony chiming in a second later.

“Back already, Barnes? Tell me it was all sunshine and daisies.”

“It _was_ sunny. No daisies, though.”

Tony snorts. “How’d it go otherwise?”

“Well, Wanda nearly broke a window. Thought you should know.”

“I saw that.” Tony’s voice is calm, even a touch chipper. “I get an alert whenever the building’s external structure’s compromised. Helps me stay on top of repairs, maintenance, the like. Anything I need to worry about?”

“I think they’ll sort it out.”

“Ah.”

The sound on Tony’s side cuts off briefly. Bucky bites his tongue, realizing belatedly that he was probably asking about other damages in the gymnasium or about the window itself. There’s soft rustling on the intercom, possibly indicative of shuffling papers.

“That is an argument,” Tony says, sounding surprised. “At least they’re in a training room. Not much in there to turn into a projectile weapon.”

“Unless she starts chipping away at the ceiling,” Banner notes, voice soft and apprehensive.

There’s a beat of silence.

“If you’re sitting there watching them, I’m gonna cut the feeds, Tony.”

He sighs. “All right, all right. You got me. They’re off.”

“It’s a good call, Barnes. I think they’re gonna be okay. What about you? Any worse for wear?”

“I’m fine.”

“Sure about that? You sound a little not-fine.”

“Tony,” Banner cuts in gently.

“I will be fine. That better for you?”

“Eh, it’s semantics. Oh. In case you’re interested, Barton and Romanov are on the sixteenth floor. Training, you know? They’re so diligent, those two. Makin’ the rest of us look bad.”

“Why would that interest me?” Bucky asks, careful not to sound hostile.

“Maybe it doesn’t, but they asked me to let you know, so here I am. Sixteenth floor, Barnes. Looks a bit like the gym but without all the shiny stuff. You can’t miss it.”

Bucky sighs. “Thanks. I’ll check it out.”

“Great! Me, I gotta call a guy about a window.”

The intercom powers down to conserve energy once they disconnect. Bucky stares at it and glances around at his room. He could stay and re-read _The Fox and the Hound_ , but he’s agitated still from talking to the twins. Maybe that’s a better argument for sitting down and unwinding with a book. He doesn’t know. Climbing the stairs to the sixteenth floor is a more appealing prospect.

In the interest of stalling, he takes out his phone and scrolls through his contacts. Karen said to call and check in every once in a while, so that’s something that needs to happen. It’s the middle of the work day, though. She and the team might be up to their elbows in documents. Bucky scrolls further down to the ‘W’ section. He hovers over Wilson’s name with his thumb.

The twins always get Bucky thinking about Wilson, especially Wanda since she has a more comprehensive view of their relationship than most people do. He doesn’t think all that many people have the skinny on what Wilson’s experiences have been or how he got from where he was to where he is. Bucky doesn’t, not completely.

“Heya, tin man. What’s shakin’, bacon?”

He decides to be blunt since that’s what he expects in turn. “Just sat down to talk with Wanda and Pietro.”

“Oooh, quelle surprise! How was it? Were there many bonding moments to be had? A heartfelt montage of tearful hugging and intimacy?”

“No,” Bucky grumbles. “Why is it surprising that I talked to them?”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d hop to it so fast. Sure, we hoped, but it’s not the sorta thing you rush into, is it? Gotta be delicate with those two. Him probably more than her.”

“We?”

“Yeah, I mean, I talked you up enough.”

“You’re giving me more questions than answers here.”

“Not really a big shocker there, you gotta admit. It is me, after all. So, you need answers, Buckles? What kind? I’ll do my best. None of that 8-ball crap like from the first part.”

Bucky rubs at his temple. “That dream you had keeps coming up.”

And it does, even if it’s not the one Pietro meant to draw Bucky’s attention to. Wanda had tried to talk to him about it before like maybe she needed his help fumbling after closure. He hadn’t wanted to get it into it. Wilson didn’t share it with him first, so that meant he had no place hearing it, he’d reasoned. Now he’s beginning to suspect he made a mistake pushing her away—if he’d denied her the chance to do what she refused to try at all with her own brother.

“Oh, that silly old thing.” Wilson’s voice wilts a little. “Which part? The part where the world almost went poof? Because I kept _trying_ to tell her that that wasn’t her fault. After a point, apocalyptic death robots just do what they want, you feel me?”

Haltingly, Bucky says, “No? She hasn’t told me what you saw.”

“None of it? Why not? I figured she’d be chompin’ at the bit to read you in.”

“Um.”

“Tin man, what?”

“Okay, so I…may have told her that it wasn’t any of my business.”

“What! Why?”

“You never volunteered any of it. I didn’t feel right letting her speak for you. Whatever it was, it was in your head, and you weren’t there to tell me yourself, so.” He gestures pointlessly with one hand.

Wilson falls silent. Bucky taps his fingers on his leg, counting the seconds. Fifteen of them tick along.

“But you never asked.”

“I heard it was bad.” Bucky fights back the compulsion to shrug, though Wilson would probably know he was doing it. “You don’t make me talk about the bad shit. Why would I ask you to do it?”

“I think…we’re due for a talk, you and me. Next chapter, looks like.”

“Yeah? Well, we’ve gotta do it before I see the twins again.” Bucky hears Wilson choking back a snort, sighs, and says, “I heard it that time.”

“You said ‘do it’.” Wilson chortles, but it’s not the full-blown laugh he usually saves for accidental innuendo. “What’s with the deadline?”

“I want you to come with me when I sit down with them next time. If you don’t mind.”

“Buddy, if you ask, I gotta. But why?”

“C’mon, you know why. We’ve been dragged through the same mess. Natasha, too.”

“Are you putting together a support group?” Wilson asks with tenderness thick in his voice.

Bucky tries to be annoyed at the question, but Wilson always sees right through him and it wouldn’t do any good at all to deny it. It’s hard shouldering the full responsibility of trying to work through what happened to him or to the twins or how they ended up in the same boat. It’s hard to be the single point of focus for two supercharged siblings struggling to even see eye to eye with each other in the aftermath of what they’ve survived.

They’re fractured, the lot of them. Individually, they’re treading water. Across the board in their relationships, they run the risk of sinking too far into the deep end. If they can’t count on each other, they won’t make it.

“Doesn’t seem sensible making me their chaperone,” he mumbles, trying to make light of the whole ordeal but not really.

“Give yourself _some_ credit, tin man. You’ve had a lot of positive role models up until now.”

“That’s true.”

“We’ll talk about the Big Bad Dream of the End whenever you want, all right? We might even laugh about it.”

“I really don’t see that happening.”

Wilson laughs, a real loud bark of a laugh like he’s never known how to keep any part of himself stifled for long. Bucky’s hands go a little cold thinking back on when they met, how he’d grimaced and thought the noisy stranger in red was obnoxious and unbearable to be around. So much has transpired to get them here to this conversation. 

“Do you ever…”

“Hmm?”

Bucky clears his throat and loses his nerve. “Later. We can talk about it later. See you soon.”

“Ta-ta, Buckles.”

Smiling in spite of himself, Bucky hangs up before his mouth can take off with something else that’s been on his mind more and more lately. Since the thing with Steve, the thing where he hit Steve in the theater room, he’s been re-evaluating every instance of violence that he’s been party to since coming back to New York.

The fight on the bridge was pretty bad. He got banged up more than he should have; didn’t fight as wisely as he could have. Everything would have gone irreparably pear-shaped for him if Wilson hadn’t been on his side from the first. Really, Bucky owes him a whole damn lot.

Even when he’d been suffocating under self-destructive tendencies and anger, Wilson’d had unerring faith in him all along. He believed in him so much so soon even though Bucky was cruel to him; even though he made that ugly crack about Wilson’s skin looking like hives and yelled at Wilson on a rooftop because he didn’t think he could’ve had any clue what Bucky’s life had been like.

He shot Wilson through the eye at Hudson Yards.

And Bucky’s apologized for every one of those things, but that hardly puts a dent in the fact that it’s pain he caused—pain he put Wilson through just like so many others who’ve put Wilson through the same kind of pain.

Wilson’s only ever taken the abuse, and for the life of him, Bucky doesn’t understand. It’s not like it is with Steve. The way Bucky acted toward Wilson the first night they knew each other was all him, not a product of trauma so much as survival instinct. Maybe a huge chunk of it was that he just didn’t trust Wilson for an ally, but it all feels soiled in light of everything that’s happened now; in light of how much he does trust Wilson and want him around.

Bucky shakes his head at himself and goes out to the stairwell. The climb to the sixteenth floor quiets some of the doubt clanging around in his head—not fully, but enough that he can rule his features into a mask of indifference. One shellshocked test subject breaking Tony’s things is a headache; two in the same day is bound to give a guy high blood pressure.

The stairwell leads to a hallway with an elevator on the left and reinforced double doors on the right. He hears Natasha before he sees her once he pulls the righthand door open. Clint laughs, still before Bucky gets eyes on them, and exclaims a second later.

“Jesus, uncle! _Un_ cle, holy hell, Nat.”

“Can’t believe you haven’t figured out a way out of that one yet. It’s just like Belgrade.”

“Belgrade?” Clint pauses. “Oh. Huh. Honestly, that’s not what I think of when you say Belgrade.”

“What do you think of?” Natasha stops stretching her shoulder and looks at Bucky when he makes his presence known. “Took you long enough. We were starting to wonder if you’d show.”

“Hope you weren’t expecting to spar. I’m not quite there yet.”

“We’d sit down for a long conversation first if we were expecting to spar,” Clint assures him, rubbing at a sore spot beneath his collar bone. “Incidentally, since you showed up, we were hoping for a long conversation.”

Bucky narrows his eyes at Clint, then Natasha, then Clint again. “You wanna talk terms? Sparring terms?”

“If fire breaks out, you don’t always need to smother it to keep destruction to a minimum,” Natasha drawls, looking casual but like she could easily wrangle Clint into another arm bar or whatever it was without even breaking a sweat. “Outside of just controlling it once it happens, there are a few precautions we’ve thought of.”

“Fireproofing,” Bucky deadpans. “You wanna fireproof me.”

“Hey, it’s a nice metaphor,” Clint protests, defensive to the point that Bucky suspects it was his comparison and not Natasha’s. “And think about it. With some luck and a little hard work, you won’t feel so outta control in a fight.”

“I don’t feel out of control in a fight.”

“Do you feel in control after?” Natasha asks, smooth and even in tone.

That she knows to ask that question at all tells him he doesn’t actually need to answer. The last few times he’s been in a fight, he blacked out—at Hudson Yards when Matt found him with Wilson, in Harlem when the car exploded and he lost Mahoney. For a long time, all it’s taken to get his focus to blur is noise: a train rushing by, a distantly familiar explosion, or even a ladder falling in a bookstore.

Hell, Bucky was barely aware of what he was doing when he saved that skinny kid in Lenox Hill. He’s too used to shutting down and shutting out whenever combat is introduced as an option.

“You know that I don’t,” he tells Natasha when he finds his voice. “And you know this is a bad idea.”

“If it’s not what you want, then yeah, it’s the worst idea.” She nods and points a neutral glance at Clint. Her eyes level Bucky when she turns that look on him. “You don’t have to want to stay with us, but if you do and this is how you make it right, then we start here.”

 _Spoken like a true convert,_ he thinks.

He sees it then that that’s why she’s the one listing off his options and not Clint. She’s marking herself as his mentor in this endeavor, setting herself as the standard that he can emulate someday, maybe. Pressure swells up behind his ribs that he almost can’t define. Nostalgia must show on his face because Natasha’s expression softens at something she sees in him.

“You guys need a minute?” Clint asks, voice soft and unassuming.

Natasha raises an eyebrow at Bucky, checking with him.

“The twins never finished their sandwiches. Might be hungry,” he says, forcing himself to look Clint in the eye.

He nods and makes a clean getaway, touching the small of Natasha’s back then nodding at Bucky when he passes. Natasha’s quiet the whole time that it takes for Clint to clear the room. Bucky doesn’t know what he’s going to say before he says it, but he can hardly regret it once it’s out of him.

“Makes sense that you’d be my teacher for this.”

She’s so different from the image of her he has in his mind. It only makes sense that she would be, but he hasn’t had much occasion to compare and contrast before now. He’s avoided her for the same reason that he had to avoid Steve in the beginning. The past is real and unchanging and tangible between them, but it shouldn’t have any bearing in how they view each other now.

It shouldn’t. That’s what he tells himself. The truth is always so much more confusing.

“I didn’t lie about you on the stand.”

“I’m not the reason you went from spy assassin to superhero.”

“I’m not a superhero,” Natasha challenges. “And I didn’t say you were the reason. I saved myself. But if it hadn’t been you, I’d be a different person, too.”

“Okay, _that’s_ not true.”

“Are we having a fight?” she asks, sounding delighted at the quaintness of it.

“We’re having a long conversation,” Bucky mumbles, starting to walk along the edge of the training mat while he watches his feet. “And disagreeing about everything.”

“Now that does sound like us.”

Natasha strides along in time with him, her bare feet hardly sticking at all to the mat. He sounds clumsy in comparison, his boots slightly louder on the hardwood floor. They’re not going out of their way to be quiet. It’s just ingrained in them to make their footsteps soft and their movements purposeful but below the radar, unremarkable.

The elevated mat gives her a few inches, but she’s still not taller than him. If he were also barefoot and a bit slouched, they might stand perfectly at eye level. He remembers once spending a whole day teaching her to use her height to her advantage, either by bringing her opponent down or by bringing herself up. They’d had a time of it. Bucky hadn’t been told to do it so much as he had noticed her struggling to reach him without getting grabbed in the process, and decided to do something about it.

He’d decided.

It’s no small wonder he couldn’t help but fall for her. She gave him a glimpse of free will. For even a short period of time, they’d had power in each other. Bucky blinks those memories away and raises his gaze to the far wall that they’re slowly approaching.

“You remember a lot? About us? How we were?”

“Do you?”

“I thought so. Some of it’s gone, though. When I really concentrate and try to put it all together, there’s pieces of it missing. Everything’s like that.”

“What’s your faintest memory?”

He squints, sorting through the mess of it in his head. Beleaguered by the effort of remembering, the words come to him slowly like he’s lifting them one by one from a bucket of molasses: “There was a time you were correcting my Russian. A word I used. You said I talked like an old man.”

Natasha smiles but doesn’t laugh. It looks like it was a close call, though. She tamps it down and asks after his strongest memory. He hesitates. It’s barely a few seconds, but she notices.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I want to.” He shrugs. “Or else what’s the point?”

“You don’t have to tell me everything at once,” she amends.

“It’s embarrassing.”

“I won’t think so.” She studies him while they turn in tandem and begin walking again in the direction they came from. “I was there, Bucky. You can’t say anything that’ll surprise me.”

He blinks at her. “You know all of it then?”

“A lot of it.” She tilts her head to one side as if she’s sizing him up. “I’m missing bits and pieces, too.”

“They wipe you, too?”

It’s asked with a dull, misplaced anger that rises patiently inside his chest. She turns away from him and shrugs one shoulder like it’s nothing, like it shouldn’t hurt him. Putting that scorched, raw feeling away makes his eyes burn for a few seconds until he can blink the moisture back.

“I wish I’d killed them.”

“We’re not blameless,” she says with no heat behind the words. Resigned, tired. “And you couldn’t have gotten them all.”

“Think I still tried it a few times.”

He scratches the side of his head where the scar from his bullet graze has since been covered in a healthy patch of hair. Wilson’d been so effusive about Bucky’s hair growing back after the scabbing subsided. The whole thing would have been embarrassing if it hadn’t been kind of endearing, even in spite of Tony’s moans of, _That’s not how scar tissue works, guys._

Natasha doesn’t speak further on their previous topic, so Bucky takes a moment to listen. She’s so quiet and collected, not a mess like him. He wonders if she ever was or if anything ever breaks her steely resolve. Nothing had when he knew her, the tiny portion of who she was that allowed him to feel like a human being and not a ruthless machine. There were small injustices that got under her skin, but he never saw her broken down and ruined.

Come to think of it, he can’t remember seeing her at the end of her training. It’s one of those blank spots that’s missing from the final reel. Maybe it happened too soon after they wiped him for it to stick. Maybe it didn’t stick with her either.

But his strongest memory. It’s simple and vivid.

“Do you remember when you gave me that black eye? And, uh, was it…Kovalev, yeah. He was congratulating you for it. Do you remember that?”

She flicks her gaze out ahead, searching for the memory. Her expression clears and she nods.

“They left us alone for a while, but they wouldn’t give me a compress or anything.”

“Yeah, and I asked you why.”

Bucky closes his eyes, footsteps slowing to a halt. “I told you, _‘Because it must be so.’_ You hated that.” A tiny laugh escapes him. “You thought I was a lumbering idiot.”

Her voice gets serious and she tells him, “That’s not what I thought.”

For those first few seconds before he actually hears the words, they’re back in that training room so long ago and she’s using that tone to say, _‘You said we would handle knives today.’_

That voice is the one she used for casual betrayals; when he did something counter to what he promised or if she couldn’t pinpoint his behavior. Natasha shakes her head at him when he opens his eyes. She’s stopped walking, too, but she’s standing a few paces ahead of him on the yellow mat. Her lips tighten into a thin line, expression turning remorseful and voice gentling almost into a whisper.

“I didn’t think that. You just didn’t seem real.”

Bucky shrugs and looks around at the room that’s almost entirely fitted out with yellow mats. “Science fiction rarely does. I mean,” he mumbles, moving one foot in front of the other until he passes Natasha up. “Frankenstein’s monster had that problem, too, right?”

“There is a monster at the end of that book.” Natasha saunters up at his side easily like he didn’t have a few yards on her. “It’s just not the one you’re comparing yourself to.”

He smirks up at the ceiling, spots the three cameras in the room. Two of them are pointed in their direction while the third watches the door from the hallway. Bucky looks away, comfortable enough with Tony’s careful watch since they’re in his home and a window nearly broke in the other gym Bucky visited. It’s less disconcerting to think that Tony’s worried about more property damage and not about Bucky himself. Maybe he’s worried about Natasha, but that doesn’t sound right.

Clint left them alone together. He left Bucky alone with the twins. Whatever Tony’s reasons are for keeping an eye on them, Clint trusts Bucky not to fuck everything up. It’s honestly astounding how much pressure Bucky feels to live up to those expectations.

“You’re right about one thing, though,” she tells him, soft and wistful like they haven’t been talking about monsters and killing.

“Only the one?”

She tilts her head to one side, pretending to think it over. “Pretty much.”

Bucky sputters for trying to hold back the laugh in the back of his throat. “Okay, and what’s that?” 

“ _‘Because it must be so.’_ ” She strides a few steps ahead of him, steps off the mat, and stands firm in front of him. Once more, the humor has peeled back from her demeanor to leave only solemnity staring him calmly in the face. “Hated it.”

“Why, if not because it was a stupid thing to say?”

“Because it _was_ a stupid thing to say and it took you two tries.”

“And you didn’t think I was an idiot,” Bucky deadpans, trying to step around her. “Right.”

“I didn’t,” she insists, tone bordering for a split second on vehemence. Her stance in front of him exudes quiet power that he doesn’t try to subvert. “I’m a better judge of character than most.”

He’d bristled up at the reminder of how difficult it was for him to even answer her question, but the assurance she’s given, needlessly, pacifies him. It shouldn’t matter to him if she thought he was stupid when they met. _He_ thinks he was stupid when they met, not that he could much help it. Speaking without being addressed first or talking for reasons outside of giving instruction wasn’t something he had been conditioned to consider safe.

There were a lot of things that had been beaten and burned out of him by the time they put him with her. That he could say anything to her that wasn’t strictly for the benefit of her education is its own kind of miracle. Natasha sees that.

She flayed him open with her eyes during that first conversation just like Matt digging under his skin at the docks in Hell’s Kitchen. It’s that razor sharp awareness that made her Black Widow. _That’s_ why she went straight when Clint gave her half a chance. She _is_ a good judge of character. If there could have been one person in that era of his life who might see him beneath the brainwashing and the rage, it was her.

It still is her, is the message he thinks he’s getting here, though she’s not the only one. His world has gotten a lot bigger than Hydra let it be the first time life brought them together.

Bucky drops his chin and casts a furtive glance at his metal arm.

“Okay.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow, asking without words what he’s agreeing to. As she should.

“Training. I want Samson to weigh in on it before we start and I need to talk to Tony about the technical aspects, but my answer’s yes.”

“Good,” she says, mild as anything and turning on her heel to face the door to the hallway. Her hand dips into her pocket and removes a laser pointer. The red dot flashes through the window in the top half of the hallway door and swishes twice with her wrist. She turns back to Bucky and regards his furrowed eyebrows with a blasé shrug. “I thought you’d want to be prepared for the worst.”

The hallway door opens and Thor pokes his head in. “All is well, my friends?”

“We decided on the ‘all clear’ signal together, Thor,” Natasha reminds him, turning and stepping backward to put herself shoulder-to-shoulder with Bucky. “Clint’s not back yet?”

“He is not. Pietro sent word. They are consuming sweetmeats and will be indisposed for the afternoon.”

“Must be good stuff,” Bucky mumbles, still confused at this turn of events.

Thor beams at him, looking relaxed and unimposing but for the hammer hanging idly in a loop at his wrist. He says, voice booming in the quiet room, “Aye, they looked sumptuous. I was bribed with one but resisted, valiantly.”

Bucky snorts. Natasha scoffs.

“What was he trying to get you to do?” she asks him.

“He wished to be given access to the room. I suspect treachery as he had with him a bag of these enticing confections.”

“I didn’t notice a locking mechanism on the door,” Bucky says slowly. “J.A.R.V.I.S. keep the room sealed up after Clint left, or what?”

“More like Mjölnir,” Natasha tells him, angling her chin at the hammer dangling at Thor’s side. “Pietro can’t lift it.”

“You…” Bucky points at Thor, standing a mere two feet away. “Blocked the doors with a hammer?”

Thor’s smiling mouth opens and then closes, gaze catching with Natasha’s. He clears his throat and shakes the leather band from his wrist so that the handle slides down to fit neatly in his palm. Bucky watches it instead of Thor’s face, still not perceiving a threat. It’s hard to look at a nice guy like Thor and see danger.

“Was that your contingency?” he asks Natasha. “You were gonna have him clobber me half to death with the hammer?”

Offended at the notion, Thor exclaims, “On my honor, no!”

Natasha pins Bucky with her eyes and they’re surprisingly warm when they lock onto his. “We thought it’d work to nonviolently subdue you. Like an anchor. Only if the talk went south, which it could’ve.”

“I’m sorry, subdue me? How? The thing must weigh ten pounds.”

Thor emphasizes his point by shifting it up with a swish of his wrist so that he can grip it closer to the mallet. He extends it halfway to Bucky in offering, tilting the handle so that it's right there within his reach.

“Try if you like. The others regularly test their strength against it.”

Bucky’s hand stalls, fingertips brushing the handle. He thinks he hears Natasha’s teeth click in her mouth when he falters. “Can Steve lift it?”

“He’s close. Hasn’t tried lately.” Natasha crosses her arms over her chest. “The last time was when you were still in prison. After we brought the twins from Sokovia.”

“There’s a trick to this, isn't there?” Bucky huffs a blustery sigh at the flash of pure guilt on Thor’s face. He snatches his hand away. “There’s a trick. What is it? ‘m I gonna catch fire because I’m a puny earthling and not some god?”

“You are far from puny, Bucky,” Thor argues, aghast on Bucky’s behalf. His handsome face breaks into an impressive frown. His voice softens, genuinely wounded, apparently, with the indignity of Bucky’s words. “You are mighty! A true warrior! Protector eternal of our equally noble friend, Steve. You do yourself a harsh disservice in believing that you are some lowly being, unworthy of praise. Believe as we do that you were made for greatness.”

Bucky blinks. Natasha muffles a laugh. Thor grins and gives the hammer a vigorous shake of encouragement, and he’s so deeply earnest about it that Bucky’s chest aches. His eyes actually have the appearance of brimming with hope, shining as they are.

Sighing, Bucky brushes his fingers along the handle. “If I catch fire, I'm taking your hair with me,” he warns in Thor's direction.

“I will take care not to call the lightning,” Thor promises gravely.

Bucky checks his face to gauge how serious he is. They stare at each other for three solid seconds. The traitorous corners of Thor’s mouth twitch and shatter the tension.

“You asshole,” Bucky mutters, but he’s smirking, too. “All right, fine.”

He closes his fingers around the handle, distractedly noting Thor’s maintained hold on it, and lifts. Resistance tugs against him where the grip Thor has on the hammer wars briefly with Bucky’s. Thor relaxes his hand and the hammer goes with Bucky, faintly unbalanced for its top heavy weight dispersion. A scoff passes his lips and he turns the hammer one way then the other in his palm. Ten pounds is probably too light an estimate, but he can’t be that far off.

“Hold me down with this,” Bucky muses, chuckling at the thought. He looks up from his fascinated perusal of the mallet’s etchings and pauses at the looks he’s getting from Natasha and Thor both. “What?”

The wall-mounted speakers near the ceiling screech with a person’s—Tony’s—fumbling. Natasha has a satisfied smile, tiny and private, on her face. Thor’s still grinning from ear to ear, folding his arms over his chest with reserved pride.

 _“I’m taking pictures,”_ Tony warns in a rush over the sound system. _“Cap’s gonna flip his lid when he sees these.”_

Bucky flips the hammer in his hand. “I’m gonna need someone to explain.” 

The hallway door bursts open, yielding to a whirlwind of movement Bucky can’t pick apart with his eyes. Pietro skids to a stop several yards behind Thor with his eyes charmingly widened in surprise. The plastic bag he’s got could probably hold several large pizzas and smells vaguely of sweet bread. Bucky’s stomach growls.

“What is this magic?” Pietro squawks. 

Bucky hands Mjölnir back to Thor and scarfs down a cherry turnover straight from the bag while everyone collectively loses their shit around him. He nearly pulls a muscle trying not to laugh in their faces when they explain why he didn’t immediately drop the hammer. Halfway through Bucky’s second delicious turnover, while he’s shaking his head in open disbelief and losing the fight against the big stupid smile taking over his face, Pietro grunts his displeasure and grabs the hammer.

There’s a suspended moment of breathlessness. Thor’s face falls and he grasps after it, too late to stop Pietro from snatching it off his wrist. The beautiful hardwood splinters plaintively beneath the mallet, spiteful in its abrupt weight gain like it’s making a point.

“Do you see?” Pietro asks frantically in a shout to be heard over Bucky’s coughing. “Not a joke.”

“It has to be,” Bucky gasps, pounding his fist on his chest and swallowing a few times more than he strictly needs to. “That’s not…I _can’t_. Not if _Steve_ can’t. No. I don’t—”

Natasha sighs, takes a knee, and calmly lifts Mjölnir out of the dent it’s smashed into the protesting floorboards. She passes the hammer back to Thor and gives Pietro a cursory once-over, checking for injuries. Thor closes his fist protectively around the handle and pats Pietro on the back once he’s fully straightened out.

“Are you hurt?”

“No,” Pietro says, catching his breath still from the excitement. He looks down. “Sorry.”

“It is forgiven. You are unharmed.”

“Not to mention, you did just make our case for us,” Natasha counters, raising her eyebrows at Thor’s glance. “He did.” She turns to Bucky. “Didn’t he?”

A lump of chewed up fruit has lodged itself in Bucky’s throat. He coughs around it, blinking rapidly and looking away. Heat floods his face and down his neck. He makes a noncommittal sound and shoves more of the turnover into his mouth, though it’s less appetizing than it was initially.

“Some trick,” he mumbles, once he’s finished that bite and they’re all still just watching him.

He stuffs more of it into his face and flees, leaving the sweets and the stupid judge-y hammer and his friends staring after him. Clint and Wanda catch him coming off the elevator as he’s waiting to get on.

“Hey-hey, look who’s worthy! High five, buddy!”

“God,” Bucky groans, horrified because Tony must’ve told everyone while Natasha, Thor, and Pietro were trying to get it through his thick skull how the hammer works. “It was a fluke. They tricked me. I didn’t do anything.”

“But my brother can’t lift it,” Wanda says.

“Excuse me,” Bucky pleads, flustered, desperately hanging onto his manners.

“Yeah, nobody can,” Clint murmurs to Wanda, meaning to be reassuring. “Well, Nat and Thor can. But Thor’s Thor and Nat is literally the best.”

“I agree. Sure. Please.”

Wanda steps aside to let him escape into the elevator. Clint smiles at him while the doors slink closed, kind and good-natured like Bucky’s come to expect. Once he’s safely cloistered away, Bucky closes his eyes and presses his right hand to each side of his face. The reflective metal doors show him splotchy cheeks glowing pink.

“Shit,” he breathes. He accidentally meets his own eyes and blinks. “It was supposed to hold me down?”

_“It really wasn’t.”_

Nearly jumping out of his skin, Bucky half-yells, “ _Christ_ , Banner.”

 _“Sorry, sorry.”_ He speaks with an audible wince in his voice. _“Tony left for streusel cake. He lost the coin toss.”_

Bucky rolls his eyes and searches out the camera. It’s right at level with his face. He frowns at it.

_“I know, privacy, sorry. J.A.R.V.I.S. activates the intercom on the elevator according to heart rate and heat signatures of its occupants. It’s a security feature. Tony designed it to detect conflict. I guess Cap got held up in an elevator at S.H.I.E.L.D.’s old HQ back in Washington right around the time all that stuff with Pierce happened.”_

Banner’s got a great crooning voice, all softened edges and delicate susurrations. If Bucky weren’t already inclined to go easy on Banner because of his rational explanation for everything, his delicate tone would’ve gotten him there. He’s curious about the elevator story, though, and wants to hear more about the so-called security features Tony’s installed all over the tower. When asked after his floor number, Banner dutifully calls the elevator for him.

“Jumped clean out of a window, did he?” Bucky asks tiredly, sat down at an oval-shaped table with Tony and Banner on either side of him. “Gonna put me in my grave for good, that reckless little shit.”

Tony laughs so hard he almost falls out of his chair. Banner does a good job of limiting his reaction to a tightlipped smile that’s almost a grimace. Bucky moodily gnaws on his stolen danish and pats down his pockets for his phone.

**Bucky (1:44 PM)**  
**You jumped out of a window, Steve. You jumped out of a goddamn window.**

“You know he jumped on a grenade once, too, right? Pre-serum?” Tony asks, voice pitchy with how he’s struggling against the titter overtaking his throat. “And he constantly jumps out of planes without a parachute.”

Bucky stares at Tony and then at Banner. His phone vibrates and Tony badly suppresses a giggle.

**Steve (1:47 PM)**  
**Are you talking to Tony**

**Bucky (1:47 PM)**  
**IM TALKINF TO YOU. A GRENADE STEVE NO PARACHUTE? S T VE**

Tony’s moved onto silently laughing into the back of his hand, shoulders heaving. His free hand clutches at his side. Banner’s still mostly composed, but he has an amused smile tugging at his lips that he can’t seem to shake.

**Steve (1:51 PM)**  
**I can explain**

**Bucky (1:52 PM)**  
**You can try.**

**Steve (1:54 PM)**  
**this is probably why I can’t lift mjolnir**

**Steve (1:54 PM)**  
**Right? I bet this is why**

**Bucky (1:57 PM)**  
**don’t change the subject**

“Oh, man,” Tony whimpers, scrubbing at his eyes. “Wow. Thanks, Barnes. I needed that.” One more reedy chuckle slips out. “ _‘Reckless little shit,’_ , good lord.”

“Speaking of reckless,” Bucky mutters, pocketing his phone. “What do you mean, they didn’t mean for the hammer to hold me down?”

Tony reaches for a metal clipboard and clacks away at unseen buttons. Thor’s voice filters in, even more thunderous than usual in surround sound. He’s laughing boisterously while Clint swears under his breath, straining.

 _“I swear, man, I’d think you were cheating if—”_ He expels a harsh breath.

 _“If I couldn’t lift it, too?”_ Natasha cuts in, effortless and flawlessly casual. _“It’s a good plan. Whether Bucky can lift it or not.”_

_“But he will lift it. Of that I am certain.”_

Bucky listens to the unfolding logic even as his phone buzzes against his side with another text message. Apparently if Bucky couldn’t lift Mjölnir, he would’ve been satisfied with their ‘backup plan’ to contain his violence. If he ended up able to lift it, he could have his goodness confirmed by the cosmic deciding powers of a sentient hammer.

“And if I _had_ gotten violent?” He asks when the recording stops. “I _dissociate_ , Tony.”

“Why do you think they set up shop in a room with literally no furniture, covered almost completely in safety mats?” Tony folds his arms on the table. His arc reactor shines a faint blue through his shirt. “And barricaded the door so that no one else could go in? They were ready for you, Barnes. They _are_ Avengers, remember?”

“But Natasha—”

“Can also wield the hammer and could’ve taken it from you if necessary. She would have, too, especially if L’Oreal was in there with her.”

“What? Oh.” Bucky bites his cheek to hold back his startled laugh.

“She said she could take you if it came to blows,” Banner chimes in, utterly neutral. “We sorta had to take it on faith that she knew what she was talking about.”

Bucky’s not about to argue against that point. He can’t. 

“There’s something else you’re not considering. They trusted you. If that makes any kind of difference in how you look at it.”

“What he said,” Tony quips, smirking at Bucky. “Our thunder shaker, our reformed assassin spy, our caffeinated archer, _and_ …” He wags his eyebrows. “A souped up hammer from space have deemed you trustworthy. Emphasis on the ‘worthy’ bit. Congrats. You oughta celebrate this moment, Barnes. It’s a big one. You, Nat, and the beefy one now co-rule Asgard.”

Bucky rubs blearily at his forehead and checks his phone. It’s a picture from Steve that Tony must have forwarded to him. He’s smiling toothily at the hammer where it’s held daintily at an angle in his palm, balanced precariously against his fingers. The photo is captioned:

**Steve (2:09 PM)**  
**Made for greatness**

He returns to his room an hour later with a belly full of danish and his mouth tasting of mascarpone. The picture stays open on his phone, draining his battery so that he can look at it. After a lengthy battle of wills and second thoughts, he forwards the text to Karen and waits. She texts back a string of exclamation points and immediately calls him.

“Holy crap, Bucky!” She’s laughing and almost shouting. “Bucky, holy crap! Is that really Thor’s hammer?”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, shy in the face of her enthusiasm, of how honest it is.

“Thor’s hammer, what?” Foggy asks, a ways off.

“Look.” Karen fiddles with her phone.

“Man, I knew it!” he gushes. “Matt, he’s all grown up, wielding magic hammers.”

Matt’s musical laugh chimes, drawing nearer to the phone. “Is that so?”

“Natasha can lift it, too,” Bucky says, attempting to direct the attention away from himself. “But Steve can’t.”

“I wonder if you can lift it, Matt,” Karen muses.

“Huge guys with muscles and machines couldn’t get it to budge an inch at the crash site,” Matt says, sounding a touch wary. Concerned for his health, maybe. “I remember you followed the story on all the news stations back when it happened.”

“Yeah, well.” Foggy makes a noise. “It was interesting, okay? Don’t you smirk at me.”

Bucky squeezes his hand, looking intently at the lines in his palm. “They say you gotta be worthy.”

“That explains it then,” Karen chirps with absolute certainty.

Foggy hums. “Yeah, I mean, there you go.”

“Makes perfect sense,” Matt agrees.

Bucky sneaks another glance at the photo and silently places the phone at his ear again. Warmth surges and bursts behind his ribs, blooming steadily upward. It crests just beneath his throat, leaving him thrumming with it. It flutters in his fingertips like a tiny exuberant heartbeat. It sings deep in his heart like a wave transformed from the smallest ripple into an unbroken wall of salt and foam.

He sniffles as quietly as he can manage, eyes stinging. More salt, funnily enough.

“I love you guys.”

“We love you,” Karen and Foggy reply, voices overlapping.

Matt chuckles. “Yeah, they said it.”

Bucky stares at the picture for a long time after they leave him with well wishes. He takes his boots off and lies on his bed with Matt’s wool blanket thrown over his feet. The Bucky Bear seated atop his copy of _The Fox and the Hound_ on the side table keeps watch for him. His phone battery is nearly fried when he gives in and responds to Steve’s earlier text.

**Bucky (4:32 PM)**  
**Maybe you’re right**

He roots around in his drawer for the phone charger and checks back when another text buzzes in.

**Steve (4:36 PM)**  
**Protector eternal**

**Bucky (4:37 PM)**  
**don’t you sass me**

Bucky squints at the powered down screen, waiting.

**Steve (4:38 PM)**  
**M I g h t y**

**Bucky (4:38 PM)**  
**steve**

A light on the phone turns red when he plugs it in to the wall. He makes a face at his text and types another one.

**Bucky (4:41 PM)**  
**I’ll find you**

The reply comes instantly, drawing a smirk out of him.

**Steve (4:41 PM)**  
**:D**

Bucky flings the door to his room open and catches Steve grinning at his phone just down the hall outside his own room. His head snaps up, laughing, caught, shameless about all of it. He still laughs the same. The warmth from before washes over Bucky in waves that tingle at his scalp and down the nape of his neck.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” Bucky drawls, curious and walking over to him.

Steve stands up straight where he’d been leaning against the wall. He pockets his phone, finally looking a touch bashful.

“Have you been out here a while?”

“No, I just wanted to see if you felt like doing something. Then we were texting and I kinda wanted to keep doing that for a minute.”

Bucky shakes his head and smiles at his socked feet. He knows from staring at the Mjölnir photo for approximately an hour that it’s his goofy teeth-showing smile. They’re both losers. Instead of telling Steve that, he says, “I gotta get shoes.”

Steve _beams_ at him. “Okay.”

He doesn’t even know what they’re going to be doing, but it hardly matters. Losers, the both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Projecting thoughts onto others isn't a canon Wanda power as far as I know? But one of her listed abilities is Altering Reality, so...accidentally pushing nightmares onto someone she already shares a strong psychic bond with due to stress, fear, and guilt doesn't seem like much of a stretch to me.


	5. Thor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shenanigans with Mjölnir! Featuring Bucky, Thor, and Natasha. And also stucky that you don't have to squint to see.

Samson isn’t opposed to giving Bucky the go-ahead for controlled physical combat. He says if Bucky’s ready to try it, he can take on any new experience one step at a time. The thing he gets hooked on and the thing he asks Bucky to talk more in depth about is whether combat is what he deeply and truly wants.

“I gotta make it right somehow,” he reasons, not defensive, not yet. Just feeling out the question for everything that it is. “It’s a part of me I need to take back.”

“Understandable.” Samson plants his elbows on his desk, fingers steepled as he thinks. “But it’s like Natasha said: this isn’t your only option. If you wanted, you could live a life of nonviolence out in the woods and call that penance.”

“It’s not enough.”

“Have you thought about why you believe that?”

Bucky flops his hands in his lap. The sepia tint of his left arm sparks in the sun like a burning match head. It’s fitting that this arm glows with skin-imitating fire where the former prosthesis always bore a closer resemblance to ice. Samson watches Bucky studying his arm but keeps his comments to himself. They’ve discussed it before.

“I did terrible things.”

“You never wanted to do any of it.”

“Didn’t I?” Bucky’s mouth snaps closed and he turns away, gritting his teeth. “Not that I ever _wanted_ to hurt anyone, but I _wanted_ —I wanted to be out of that fucking box.”

Samson lowers his hands and folds his arms across the cherrywood desk. He says in a merciful, soft voice that nobody blames Bucky for needing to escape whenever he could. Bucky must not look convinced at his amnesty because Samson gets a carefully resigned look on his face.

“Do you remember ever wanting anything else?”

A few times, Bucky had this fantasy of returning from a failed mission only to be immediately retired by his handlers. He never found himself armed with the presence of mind to carry out any series of events that would reliably achieve the desired effect and force their hands that way, but the spark of it flickered sporadically in him. 

After a mission in Tripoli, they’d burnt even that glimmer of hope out of him. The punishment for a slighter crime than purposely sabotaging a mission proved too severe for the thought of rebellion to ever fully germinate in his mind.

Got to such a point that he couldn’t so much as accept a glass of milk in Pierce’s swanky penthouse apartment. Wouldn’t flinch out of the path of a hand moving to strike his face.

“Bucky?”

He clears his throat. “Sorry. I didn’t go away. I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“About your question.”

“If it’s too much, we can leave it for a later session.”

Bucky forces an air of indifference that gets harder and harder to fake the more he does it. More evidence of his splintering compartmentalization tactics.

“You asked if I remember wanting anything else. I do. I remember wanting Natasha to go free. I remember wanting to belong to her because she made me feel like a whole person instead of parts crammed into a body. I remember wanting to be decommissioned—get the cost of upkeep to outweigh my usefulness. Make it too expensive for them to maintain the machine. That can’t surprise you.”

“You’ve said before that dying would have been the better alternative. Do you still have those thoughts?”

“What, like I might try to kill myself? No, well, not like this, when I’m up and around. But I mean, in the middle of the night when it’s all there rattling around in my head, it’s…I might think of it how you think of rain when you smell petrichor. It’s just symptomatic at this point. Like everything else.”

He sighs and drops his face into his hands, kneading his hairline with his fingertips. Samson’s quiet across from him but not in the sense that he’s going out of his way to be silent. It’s simply how he gives Bucky time to sort through his reactions honestly without fear of judgment or interruption. Bucky’s perception of Samson hasn’t changed much since the first time they met. He’s patient, open, considerate. There’s friction every good once in a while, but seeing as the point of therapy is to find the snags and figure out how to manage them, Bucky can’t fault him a shouting match or two, or six.

Struggling to regain momentum, Bucky tells him, “I don’t, anymore. Hurt myself. That’s…I haven’t felt the need to since the courts let me go. I _have_ felt compelled, but I can ignore it now.”

“Do you think,” Samson begins, going off on their initial tangent like the master he is, “that your insistence upon reintroducing combat into your daily life, substitutes more explicit manifestations of self-harm?”

“You’re askin’ if I wanna fight so I can get banged up and not have it be my fault.”

“I’m asking if there’s any possibility that your good intentions are influenced by a lingering belief that you deserve to suffer physically as well as psychologically.”

“I already suffer physically,” Bucky says, his tone conveying enough rancor that he doesn’t have to roll his eyes to communicate it. “The kinda combat we’re talkin’ here? It’s not what you think it is, doc.”

“Educate me then,” he entreats, not an ounce of sarcasm on his voice or in his expression. “Please.”

“She’s not aiming to hurt me, and I’m not aiming to hurt her. That’s never what you try to do. It’s about unlearning aggression and staying myself so I don’t push harder than I have to. And maybe if we can get that part of my brain under control, I’ll be less of a menace when I do get into a state.”

Samson studies him for a moment. Quietly, with some small measure of reverence, he says, “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“Well, seeing how even you jumped to the wrong conclusion about the why, I kind of figured I had to.”

“I’m sorry. I misread you.”

Bucky shrugs, and this time, he doesn’t have to force the relaxed set of his shoulders. “You were lookin’ out. It’s your job to get me to use my words.”

“That definitely helps to move things along on my end,” Samson admits with a smile.

Bucky refrains from asking him to physically sign off on the whole matter, but it’s a near thing. He texts Natasha while he’s walking Greenpoint with Wilson at his side.

**Bucky (2:17 PM)**  
**Doc says we’re good to go, requests that you don’t hit me too hard**

**Natasha (2:23 PM)**  
**I make no promises.**

“That’s almost a little spooky except it’s also kinda…sweet? If you squint and turn your head?” Wilson demonstrates by laying his ear against his shoulder and scrunching up his face at Bucky’s phone. 

Bucky laughs— _laughs_ —louder than he should in the spottily crowded Japanese restaurant they’re sitting in. He thinks Wilson chose this place because it’s darker inside than it is out and has no visible windows to let the daylight stream in. Wilson’s sensitive as ever, in his understated, forcibly subtle manner, about his looks, so Bucky doesn’t mention it. He always tries to fly under the radar anyway in public, but he works harder at it when he’s with Wilson.

He’s not embarrassed by Wilson. Hell no, he’s not. But if this is the pace Wilson sets for them, then Bucky plans on respecting it. They eat and it’s quiet, and they take the train from Kingston to 81st Street once they’re done.

“What do you do in the waiting room for an hour anyway?” he asks once they’re walking again.

“Mostly I’ve been re-reading the first story. I like that scene in Chapter 4 when you’re yelling up a storm for little ol’ me to come and deliver the huggles.” Wilson dabs at the corner of his eye like he’s in danger of crying. “It’s a work of art.”

“I don’t follow, but yeah, I can see the appeal. I’d read the hell outta that, too.”

Wilson grins like the admission itself is enough. “I do feel bad you got tased, though. That’s always a rough one to bounce back from.”

“Since you mention it.” Bucky grabs Wilson’s elbow, stopping him from heading back in the direction of Avengers Tower. “We oughta have that talk. If you’ve got a minute.”

“For you, Buckles, I have multiple minutes. Like, hundreds, probably. And it’s not after dark or the first or third Sunday in the month, so we’re all gravy on my end.”

“What happens on the first and third Sundays in the month?” he asks, redirecting their course to the park he runs with Sam in the mornings. “Got a bi-weekly dance class I don’t know about? Wilson, I’m hurt.”

“Oh, I got a bi-weekly you don’t know about, tin man. It just ain’t a dance class, get me?” Wilson winks.

Bucky rolls his eyes and shakes his head, a faint smile tracing his lips. “You’re a treasure, you know that?”

He thinks he gets it right and makes the word _treasure_ sound like _pain in the ass_ , but Wilson still grins like he’s having a ball no matter which way Bucky means it. Bucky would feel bad about that, but even if he had said _pain in the ass_ in so many words, it would have been with the same inflection that he used when he called Steve a little shit. And everybody and their mother knows how Bucky feels about Steve already. 

All of that’s to say that Bucky really does mean Wilson’s a treasure, but he also really does mean that he’s a pain in the ass. One doesn’t lessen the other, is the thing.

They take to strolling down a gray brick path hewn into the grass. Trees border them on both sides, leaving sparse shards of sky to fall through the canopy of leaves immediately overhead. It’s them and a few other groups of people in this part of the park. The daylight’s too good and the breeze is too warm for people not to be out enjoying it alongside them.

It’s not Bucky’s favorite area of Central Park by half, but it’s as good a place to start as any. Besides, if his staring is any indication of preference, Wilson seems pretty fond of the trees. 

“So what’d you wanna know first?”

“The dream. You’ve talked about robots and an apocalypse. Wanda said you were afraid for me. Pietro said something about destroying the world and that he died.”

“Those are things that happened,” Wilson says, speaking slowly, cautiously. “You want me to skip over all the major plot points and cut straight to the tear jerkers?”

Bucky nods wryly. “You know me so well.”

“That I do, tin man. That I do. Okay, let me see.”

Wilson gets hung up on a few of the details and misremembers the exact order of events, but Bucky gets the general idea of what happened. The so-called robot apocalypse led to the Avengers withdrawing from his case to focus on their saving the world shtick. Negative public opinion associated with the team and their accountability regarding something called an Ultron wound up souring the jury’s taste for clemency where Bucky was concerned.

“I’m not saying that if the thing with Ultron had happened, they would’ve convicted,” Wilson hurries to add. “I mean, I can’t know that, you know? Nobody can know what might’ve gone down. This thing we saw, it’s not the _future_.”

“Sure,” Bucky murmurs, unable to say anything else.

They walk a few yards further and Wilson looks around, nervous for all that he plays at lightheartedness. “None of it’s real, tin man. Just keep that in mind, all right?”

Tense now if he wasn’t, Bucky bunches his shoulders up in a tight shrug. “Yeah.”

“So you know Speedy Gonzales bit the dust in the other place,” Wilson tells him, meaning Pietro. “And, uh, Wanda told you I was afraid for you, too. That’s true, uh. See, the thing about it is…”

“What, Wilson?” 

“This may or may not be a spoiler for the movie. It happens in the comics, but everybody dies and comes back in the comics. Maybe in the movies, too. Case and point.” Wilson waves his arm at Bucky.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Cold plucks at the back of his neck, razor sharp and pinching.

“Just please promise not to freak out, okay? At first I didn’t think you’d freak out, but now I’m worried you’ll freak out and there’s lots of people here that’ll just make it worse. Promise you’re not gonna freak out?”

Bucky sighs through his teeth. “I promise, Wilson, Christ. Spit it out already.”

Wilson glances behind them once more and waves for Bucky to follow him over onto the grass. The sun beats down more persistently on their heads further off from the cover of trees. Bucky gets a sinking feeling in his gut that he’s dreading to have confirmed, but he knows somehow. He knows.

It still doesn’t prepare him for how his ears ring and his jaw aches when Wilson says Steve died, too, in the other place that he dreamed up. There’s some kind of context to it—how he couldn’t let Bucky rot in prison, how everything splintered and fell apart, how his friends took sides, how they tore apart the world again because they didn’t believe in each other anymore. And in the midst of that shit show, Bucky’d been left standing alone in the rubble with his second heartbeat stilled forever.

“Oh,” he mumbles, hearing the silence.

“You okay?”

Bucky swallows. “I’m here. Think that’s the best I can manage.”

Wilson gives a mild shrug. He doesn’t expect more than that.

“Does Steve know?”

“Not unless the Silver Flash blabbed to him, too. I doubt it. He’s not actually mean-spirited, that one. Just nosy. Somethin’ about boundaries, I think. Not surprising if you think about it since his closest relationship is with his telekinetic twin.”

Bucky nods, not really hearing him. The words flutter in his ears like an incomprehensible echo. He grasps after them belatedly, all of the syllables meshing together, vowels melted into sanded down consonants. He has to swallow again and clear his throat before he can speak.

“Guess I…can’t, um, really scold him for something he didn’t do, can I? Steve.”

His voice breaks on Steve’s name and Wilson flinches at hearing it. 

“Hey, I told you, okay? All it means is that I don’t want Cap meetin’ my wifey and gettin’ fresh. _Anyone_ would be afraid of that! She’s gorgeous! One look at his pecs and she’d leave me _so_ fast. Fears, remember? That’s all it is.”

Bucky shakes his head. “I may be the only one who sees what you can do for what it is, but that doesn’t mean I’m imagining it.”

“What does that mean?” Wilson asks, forehead wrinkled with unmasked worry.

“If _you_ saw something, then it didn’t come from _just_ you.” Bucky watches him, wishing for what he’s saying to be false but unable to even entertain the idea of such a thing. “Or you wouldn’t have come when I called for you in Harlem. You said it yourself. You didn’t hear me.”

Wilson winces, caught. A little grimace stretches tight across his mouth.

“So this dream? You didn’t see it. It came to you from wherever the rest of it does. And don’t you _even_ —” Bucky points at Wilson’s face, catching him in the middle of a thought. “—blame it on Copperplate and Curlicue. They know as much as you do and you’re not gonna trick me into believing otherwise.”

Wide-eyed and with soft pink smattering his cheeks, Wilson breathes, “You named them?”

“Well, I…” Bucky stammers. “What was I supposed to do? Call ‘em A and B? They wrote on the postcard, it—Don’t distract me. Don’t lie to me.”

“I’d never. I never have lied to you, Bucky.”

Some of that crushing heat floats up to his own face and Bucky cross his arms. It’s impossible to hang onto his ire when he’s clearly blushing up to his fucking ears, damn it. But Wilson’s got the same problem, so it’s not like he’s having a weird reaction at least.

He’s so fixated on their combined physiological fiascos that it takes a moment for what Wilson’s said to actually penetrate. Deflating, Bucky says, “Shit, you haven’t, have you? Lied to me. Not before you knew me, not ever.”

“You’d think the Merc with the Mouth’d be a damn dirty liar, wouldn’t ya?” Wilson retorts, brightening but still shaky. “Sorry to disappoint. Figured you’d had enough of that without me adding to the list.”

It stands to reason then that Wilson’s telling the truth about what he and Wanda saw: that it’s a dream and nothing more. In fact, since it was Wade who saw it and not anyone else, it should comfort him even more. Wilson’s constantly seeing layers of truth to things that no one else can access. Maybe his bearing witness to such a cruel twist of their universe will spare the rest of them from a repeat encounter. Maybe he and Wanda traveled forward and back in time so that their lives as they are could be preserved.

Stranger things have happened.

Bucky’s still unhappy about it—can’t bear the thought of any reality where he has to push on through without Steve. Wilson loves Steve, too; practically worships the ground he walks on. It couldn’t have been easy for him to see all that. Can’t have been easy for him to see what that loss would’ve done to Bucky, who he also loves.

“So that’s what Wanda meant,” he says, looking around at the park because it’s easier than looking Wilson in the face. “When she said you were afraid for me.”

“Sort of? In general, I’m pretty much always at a four for you, if you’ll pardon the Mean Girls reference.”

Bucky blinks and Wilson makes a show of balking.

“You haven’t seen _Mean Girls_ yet? And here I thought they were _educating_ you in that glittery tower. Inexcusable.”

Rolling his eyes, Bucky redirects. “Why are you always at a four? I’m doing better now.”

“Oh, well, duh. You’re doing amazeballs, tin man. I _used_ to be at a solid eight and a half over you, back in the early days. You shoulda _seen_ your eyes pre-prison. You were scary! I think the calmest I ever saw you was when you woke up from your uber nap and started crackin’ jokes about the pee-tube.”

Bucky really wasn’t joking about the catheter when he said he could feel it, but he supposes that’s beside the point. He also suspects that Wilson refers to it as a joke in an attempt to soften whatever tension the memory might hold for him. Bucky avoided meeting his own eyes a lot when Matt and Co. first brought him in. The few occasions he’d seen how completely vacant he sometimes looked—regardless of how present he might’ve been in the moment—always unnerved him to no end.

“Even when I was mean to you, you were at an eight and a half?” Bucky asks, needing to because he’s a masochist and because he’s abjectly incapable of forgiving himself for how he treated Wilson before. 

“Buckle Bear, come _on_. You’re not still hung up on that, are you? I was literally with Hydra when they tried to grab you on the bridge. I fessed up to it right when we met. You had zero reason to trust me. Hell, I would’ve been a jerk to me, too. Which, yeah, if you’re upset that you were a jerk to me, you were. There it is. But I don’t care about that. Because ultimately? You let me help you. And that’s more than you let DD do at first, so hey. Go me! I got one over on the pretty boy!”

Wilson pumps his fist in the air. Bucky shakes his head, the makings of a smirk dancing at one corner of his mouth.

“If you _are_ gonna torture yourself over it, I might as well ask. Why _did_ you let me help you that night? I mean, my memory’s hazy sometimes on account of how often I’ve been stabbed, shot, or exploded in the brain area, but I _do_ remember lots of hostility and trust issues. Not to mention, you had a huuuuge lone wolf thing goin’ there for about a minute. It was cute and all, but I guess no one ever told you wolves aren’t actually solitary animals, so um…that’s a different conversation. Anyway, you were saying? Why you let me help you.”

It can be difficult to reconcile Wilson’s propensity for seeing all when he rambles on like this, but then, it makes some kind of sense, too. Someone who sees everything _would_ have to work harder than everyone else to keep the noise in his head from spilling over. Even on his good days, _Bucky_ finds himself saying things out loud that would be best left unspoken.

“Buckster?”

“What? Oh. Sorry. Honestly, I stuck around at first because you took a pointblank shotgun blast for me.”

Wilson gives a thoughtful little nod like he maybe already suspected that was the answer. Unsatisfied to leave it there, Bucky pockets his hands and starts them walking again toward another distant line of trees.

“But it was just one thing after the other with you. You stopped Chaplain before she could finish me off. Jesus, fucking Chaplain.” He looks at Wilson and continues at his grimaced commiseration. “I was gonna leave you behind, but you hopped right up with your goddamn guts falling out and said you’d take me to safety. Every time I started to doubt your intentions, some new part of you’d show through. And not just in the sense that you flashed me about six times that night.”

“I did not,” Wilson squawks, laughing. “Okay, yeah, I _did_ , but _six_?”

“I knew what your intestines looked like within ten minutes of knowing you. That single experience counts for at least three.”

“All right, well played. That’s definitely not my best side.”

Wilson’s back to smiling, walking in step with Bucky along the bright green grass with his hands folded behind his back. His expression is unguarded, vulnerable for the soft sort of happiness it communicates. He has that look in common with Steve. Both of them trust Bucky not to take what they’re sharing with him and crush it in his hands. Their trust in him isn’t misguided. It means the world to Bucky and then some.

A starburst in the corner of Wilson’s iris shines in the sun like a single fish scale against dark reddish brown. Bucky stares at it but doesn’t stop walking.

“Is that from when I shot you?”

“What?” Wilson claps his hand over his eye like he needs to touch the site to recall what Bucky did to him. “Oh, the little…” He makes a warbled sound and shakes his spire-shaped fist to pantomime a dimple. “Nah, I had an accident. Me and about a liter of lithium hydrate. And when I say accident, naturally, I mean that a twitchy man in Constanța wearing a white lab coat threw it in my face while screaming for help. Happened right before Sokovia, if you were wondering.”

“You’ve had it a long time then,” Bucky murmurs, sizing up the rest of Wilson’s orbital ridge for lingering damage. 

“It is what it is.” Wilson sighs airily. “Usually I gotta get a _new_ scar for an old one to fade from view, but they don’t ever really go away in the conventional sense. My healing factor’s better than anyone’s, but it ain’t the prettiest, that’s for sure. Not like _some_ people’s. You super Adonises with your perfect hair and your pretty eyes.”

“Guess if you like ‘em blue, yeah,” Bucky concedes. He squints critically at Wilson’s face and adds, offhandedly, “Seems maybe you’ve got a type.”

“Oh, you think you’re my type, do you? That’s funny, tin man.”

But Wilson’s biting back a shit-eating grin and Bucky’s not doing anything about the wolfish one overtaking his own face, so really, yeah. It is funny. They’re full-on laughing at each other by the time they break through a row of trees and onto a shaded footpath.

Bucky gets back to the tower with Wilson’s promise that he’ll be back later in the week so they can sit down with the twins if they’re up for it. He goes up to the sixteenth floor and sits on the mats for a while, thinking. When he gets bored of that, he practices walking on his hands. His left arm supports him no problem, but his shoulder suffers where metal digs into his shoulder socket if he tries it one-handed. 

The door to the room opens. Bucky bends his legs straight down toward the floor and rocks the rest of the way back so that his feet hit the mat at the same time. He stands up straight to see Thor walking leisurely toward him, Mjölnir nowhere to be seen. Bucky searches behind him and sees the hammer poised neatly on the floor by the exit. He frowns at it a bit longingly over Thor’s shoulder, always wanting to have it in his hand when it’s near because the fact that he can at all means so much to him.

Thor notices him looking and with one eyebrow arched high, says, “Mjölnir will answer your call, Bucky. Bear in mind that you are known. One can only be too happy to meet the outstretched hand of a friend.”

“I don’t get it.”

Bucky looks from Thor’s smiling face to his hand and blinks before taking it. Thor squeezes the meaty part of his palm, releases him, and turns his whole body to face the wall where Mjölnir waits, serenely unaffected. 

“Move as I did,” Thor supplies, gentling his voice and gesturing with his arm.

Understanding dawns on him and he holds out his hand, fighting back the urge to flinch away from the hammer flying towards him. Thor booms out a laugh—a hearty _hohoho_ sound that Bucky likes very much—and claps Bucky on the back. They fool around with the hammer for a good twenty minutes before Natasha discovers them, blandly judgmental at their fun.

He looks briefly for Clint and directs the question of his whereabouts to Natasha. She tells him everyone else is training across the hall. Everyone else apparently means Clint, Sam, Steve, and Tony.

“I will join our friends and leave you to your rehabilitation,” Thor murmurs, preparing to take his leave.

Bucky protests, not wanting Thor to go when he’s such a mellowing presence. He says it’ll help to have someone on hand who can help if he becomes a problem. There’s also the fact that he badly wants to train with Mjölnir and since they can all three wield it, they can train with it together. Natasha’s the decision maker of the group, so Bucky and Thor defer to her, sharing quiet, hopeful glances while she thinks it over. In the end, she decides to let Thor stay. She says it’ll be good to have some variety, to shake things up.

Natasha and Bucky don’t fight, really. What they do isn’t sparring in any sense of the word. She guides him and he follows the afterimages she leaves on his retinas. Sometimes she’s too fast and he loses a page out of their chapter as they’re writing it, but they keep scribbling down the words, heedless of what they lose in the face of what they find.

While Bucky’s taking a hard-earned water break, she and Thor go toe-to-toe on the mats and they leave Mjölnir out of it. Bucky can see why. Their styles are almost incompatible for her agility and his brute strength. It’s entrancing to watch them, like watching a burly mongoose go after a snake. Thor has to pin Natasha to subdue her with the least amount of force. Natasha has to get right up close and personal to incapacitate Thor, but that means getting within squeezing range of those powerful arms. Bucky misjudges whose squeezing power outmatches the other’s, obviously.

Thor genuinely struggles to breathe when Natasha starts choking him _with her thighs_. He calls Mjölnir to him, holds each end with both hands to bar it across her chest, and tries using it to lever her off his shoulders. Bucky can see how that would take down anyone else—if they couldn’t also lift the hammer. She traps his hands on the hammer beneath her elbows, pulls back hard so that she’s lying flat along the straining surface of his body, and doesn’t for a second loosen the circle of her legs around his neck.

Flattened out and rendered immobile, Thor flails a bit with his feet to unseat her. It doesn’t work. In an artfully dealt coup de grâce, Natasha plucks the hammer from Thor’s hands, keeping his arms trapped to her chest with the help of his dwindling oxygen supply, and twirls it like a baton. She turns her head in Bucky’s direction and winks. He puts his hands on his hips, eyebrows climbing up to his hairline.

“I withdraw,” Thor gasps, tapping his fingers at her ribs, a touch frantic for his need to breathe.

Natasha releases him. Thor goes slack and sucks in a ragged breath.

“You are as lethal as ever, Natasha,” he croaks.

Smiling sweetly as she climbs off him, she croons, “So long as you don’t forget it.”

Already sitting up and grinning widely, Thor laughs. “I could not. Your lessons are too thorough.”

Bucky has more fun than he ought to with the two of them. He likes to hear Thor laugh so frequently and he likes to see Natasha hide away all her tiny real smiles out of some protective instinct for privacy.

They go on like this. Natasha kicks Thor’s ass, and she would kick Bucky’s ass, too, if they really went for it, but they don’t. Thor doesn’t and won’t fight Bucky until Natasha says he’s ready. It’s all good and fine by him, honestly. He and Thor toss the hammer back and forth across the length of the room, practicing with trajectory. One especially innovative day, they learn they can essentially get the hammer to float by volleying call intentions back and forth.

It’s on that day that Tony walks in and shrieks, dignified-like, at the sight of the hammer zipping around the room. Bucky looks up at him, startled and forgetting what could possibly be alarming about them bouncing Mjölnir around like a glorified yo-yo.

Natasha catches the hammer, swings a borderline cheeky gaze in Tony’s direction, and says, “What?”

Tony points at her. “You’re supposed to be the responsible one.”

“No, Bucky’s supposed to be the responsible one.”

“I’m _not_ ,” Bucky insists. “Thor is.”

“Yes,” he assents, smiling all golden and beautiful—yeah, Bucky said it—and confident. He holds out his hand, calls Mjölnir halfway to him, and lets Natasha will it back so that it pings dutifully back to her like a boomerang. “I am the crown prince of Asgard. Responsibility is tantamount to the nobility that runs in my blood.”

“You were exiled,” Tony reminds him, crossing his arms over his chest.

Bucky shrugs, calls the hammer, and seesaws it back and forth with Thor so neither of them ever actually catches it. “Everybody has their off days.”

Tony sighs. “That’s it. You’ve corrupted him.”

“Well,” Natasha sighs, airy and light, letting go of her pull on the hammer so that it can rush back toward Bucky’s hand. “Doesn’t seem like a bad thing from where I’m standing.”

Between their training and his talks with Wilson and the twins, Bucky’s schedule fills up quick. He goes running with Sam in the mornings, he has breakfast with the team, calls Karen in the evenings, watches animated movies and romantic comedies with Steve at night, and sets aside Wednesday afternoons for Wanda and Pietro. They’re a lot better than they were about talking through their concerns, their struggles. Bucky doesn’t think they’re still keeping secrets from each other, but if they are, then they’ve learned to be okay with it.

Wilson and Natasha show up for a lot of their talks, but sometimes it’s just him, Wanda, and Pietro. If it is just him and them, he doesn’t get overwhelmed. None of Tony’s stuff gets broken, sometimes they cry or laugh or both, and every once in a while, they include Bucky in a ritual of touch that isn’t hugging but isn’t definitively anything else either.

Natasha spars with Bucky in earnest two months into their training. Thor waits on the sidelines with Mjölnir tucked into his side in case anything should go wrong. Bucky evades a series of hooks and jabs only to open himself up for her signature leg choke. He doesn’t bother with calling the hammer to him once she’s mounted his shoulders. Instead, he drops to his knees where he can leverage her back against the mat. His metal hand twitches toward her neck, muscles categorizing stimuli without his permission.

 _That’s how you break the hold,_ his body screams at him. An impulse not quite hindbrain and not quite intention hisses, _Break the hold._

But he panics. He thinks of choking her and he panics.

Something in his face gives her pause and she releases him instantly. Maybe a flash of terror danced in his eyes or his lips had started to form a word that meant they needed to stop, he can’t tell. Bucky falls back onto the mat with his right arm thrown over his face, clenching his jaw so hard that his teeth hurt. His metal hand stays clenched in a tight, unfeeling fist glued to his side.

Thor sits with him for a long time on the mat once he can bear to pull himself up. After standing for the better part of five minutes, Natasha sits on his other side.

“What was it?” 

“I thought about choking you.” He shakes his head, ashamed of how it sticks on his tongue. “It was a reflex. My hand started to move before I even decided.”

“Your left,” Natasha fills in.

Bucky nods, unable to look at her. 

She hums, a conciliatory sound. “Yeah, that woulda done it.”

Honest Natasha, doling out clinical truths as a salve that stings like salt for his wounds. Bucky closes his eyes. Thor places a heavy hand on Bucky’s shoulder, hardly a breach of boundaries since they’ve established already that they can roughhouse or give comfort as needed. It’s a pleasant distraction from the pounding in his ears. He tucks his chin into his chest and listens and waits. Natasha and Thor are silent but for their quiet breathing.

“It is in us to be conquered by frenzy in battle,” Thor tells him, the easy weight of his hand deepening as he squeezes. “I know. A gambit that was once integral to your continued survival has come to mean terrible pain to you. In Asgard, this is the warrior’s madness. It feeds on your fear and your suffering, just as the berserker in me gluts himself on rage.”

Bucky can recognize when he’s being leveled with, when someone’s drawing a parallel for him to capture or discard as he pleases. This one is a life raft. Thor waits patiently for Bucky to take it.

“So what do you tell the asshole to make him settle down?” Bucky asks, voice little more than a whisper.

Thor’s eyes are serious when Bucky can stand to meet his gaze again. His tone, usually musical and rich, deepens to a gravel pitch. Words rumble out of him, somber and uncompromising.

“That he will sup when I give word; that he will abstain when I give word.”

“And that works?” Bucky asks, earnest, hopeful—stupidly hopeful.

“For many years it did not. So it was with Bruce,” Thor says, sliding his focus from Bucky to Natasha. “And with you, Natasha.”

Bucky looks at her, the picture of self-control. She tips her chin at him.

“Steve was a hot mess, too, once. Not that you don’t already know. You could argue that he’s still a hot mess.” She pauses, anticipating Bucky’s snort. “Tony nearly self-destructed before the Avengers Initiative got off the ground. When it did, he wasn’t officially sought out for the team.”

“And you know that Mjölnir once saw fit to reject me,” Thor cuts in, speaking as softly as Natasha had been. “Despite our best intentions, the famine comes to us all. But so, too, does the feast.”

It’s okay to be busted up and broken, they’re saying. It’s okay to need time. He’s been told all of this before but never quite in this context. Never by warriors who have been in his place, unable to fight and unable to make peace with their injuries or with their slow recoveries. Banner told him already that he’d have good and bad days; Thor’s telling him now that his present lack of results is temporary, a phase in his life every bit as necessary as the changing of the seasons.

“Wait, that’s all of you but Clint. You skipped Clint.”

“He fell under some pretty nasty mind control when the Battle of New York happened,” Natasha says, one shoulder raised. She darts a glance at Thor, quick and almost apologetic. “He had a hard time coming back from it, but he did come back from it and he wasn’t the only one affected. Apart from that, he’s addicted to coffee. I’m thinking of staging an intervention.”

She studies Bucky for a moment while he comes to term with this information, a wrinkle creasing between her eyebrows. She flicks her hand out, so deftly casual about it that Bucky forgets what she’s doing until Mjölnir slips light and gentle into the curve of her palm.

“We should really teach you how to fly this thing.”

Bucky’s cooling dread slips to the wayside. “Teach me to _what_ that thing?”

Thor laughs and rubs a final circle between Bucky’s shoulder blades. He stands and extends both hands for Bucky and Natasha to take, pulling both of them up as if they weigh nothing.

“Okay, hold up, I have a question before you blow my mind with impromptu flying lessons.”

“Yes, Bucky?” Thor looks up, immediate and attentive.

“So I know Mjölnir’s not actually heavy. It decides, or maybe we decide, I don’t know, but it’s not _heavy_. But we’re still varying levels of strong, right? I mean, if we arm wrestled right now, there’d be a winner. We wouldn’t…create a wormhole and get sucked into it?”

Natasha chortles—and it’s a wholly new sound to Bucky’s ears, so he stares at her, dumbstruck. Thor hums and taps at his chin.

“I cannot imagine a reaction so volatile. Why do you ask?”

Bucky mulls over his reasoning and idly calls the hammer into his hand, delighting when Natasha’s grip loosens to let Mjölnir meet him halfway. “It’s just…can _most_ humans choke you out?”

“I’m not most humans,” Natasha cuts in, sneaking the hammer out of his hand. Her fingertips brush the back of his hand and she bares her teeth at him in a coy smile. “Neither are you.”

“Your question, as I understand it, is whether the ability to wield Mjölnir correlates with the ability to incapacitate me in a fight.”

“It doesn’t. His throat’s a weakness. I exploit it.” Natasha points the hammer at Bucky. “Take notes. You might be able to pin him on your first try.”

“Let us not get ahead of ourselves, my friends.”

Bucky clicks his tongue. “Oh, you’re on, thunder god. Just you wait.”

They still go out onto the grassy training field to give him their little demonstration. Bucky staunchly refuses to fuck around with the flying feature of the hammer, but he’s still fascinated enough that he pays close attention to how it’s done.

Thor and Natasha have clearly practiced it without him as Natasha can do it with ease. It looks horrific, so he’s not even a little upset about holding off and standing back. Height’s are still a bit of a sore spot for him. Now that he has a clear idea of why—his father’s death in a training accident, his own tumble down a mountain—Bucky’s not remotely eager to take to the skies by the handle of a goddamn magical hammer.

He watches from a safe spot on the ground with Thor while Natasha flies around from one raised platform to another. This part of the field seems to be geared toward training up endurance. The four obstacles Natasha’s flying to and from aren’t built overtly like climbing walls, but they’re designed to be scaled one way or another. She stops on the second tallest structure of four, swings the hammer, rockets up into the sky with it, and descends in a somewhat controlled fall on the very tallest one.

Bucky lets himself be beckoned over to the base of that gargantuan wall. Thor follows closely at his side, long hair catching in the wind like a sail made of wheat. Bucky spares a thought for Wilson and wishes he could take a picture. He’s been trying to squirrel away fewer photographs of every single thing that he likes to look at, but portraits of his friends are still his favorite type of shot to get.

The red flutter of Natasha’s hair in the wind is her most distinguishable feature from so high up. Bucky cranes his neck to look up the length of the concrete monolith she’s standing on. This wall is positioned relative to the other three so that it makes up one corner of a perfect square. It falls in between the second tallest climbing wall and the shortest, most accessible one.

“Come on, let’s try something,” Natasha calls down with her hands cupped around her mouth. The whistling wind nearly dashes her voice apart, high up as she is. “Head’s up.”

She drops the hammer and Bucky catches it. He looks at Natasha, at Thor, and back.

“What’m I meant to be doing?”

“If you’re not gonna fly, I wanna see if this’ll work. Thor, spot him?”

“Of course.” Thor assumes a more alert stance. He turns to Bucky. “I will not let you fall.”

“You better not,” Bucky warns him, forcing the bravado. “I got a phobia.”

The most innocent, well-meaning smile graces Thor’s mouth. He says, “Thus far, the three of us have excelled in navigating Mjölnir. I am optimistic that we will not fail in this endeavor, nor shall you fall.”

Bucky falls approximately forty-three times, not that he’s keeping count.

The first handful of slip-ups happen because what they’re trying to orchestrate is the equivalent of using six hands to operate one pair of knitting needles. Thor never drops him, but they’re both so surprised and motivated to try harder after the first mess-up, that they get progressively less careful about each successive catch.

His first time falling, for instance, Bucky flails and stumbles over his apologies for accidentally elbowing Thor square in the nose. The tenth time he falls, he’s climbing back into position from the moment he lands in Thor’s arms to try again, both of them hilariously unconcerned with stopping for pleasantries.

It’s pretty slapstick, when Bucky actually pauses in his hasty scrambling to look at himself. Thor tends to catch him in a bridal carry because it’s just safer. He wonders what it looks like from the view Natasha has of them.

Considering that they never actually stopped to discuss what they were going to try, it’s pretty astonishing that they’re all in alignment with what the task requires: Natasha calling the hammer to her while Bucky follows up after it, Thor waiting on the ground to catch him when they don’t get it quite right.

They’re doing the boomerang trick from before, but instead of refraining from catching Mjölnir at the end of each pull, Bucky grasps for the handle like he would if he were climbing a rope. He can only hold on for a couple seconds at a time before he sinks with falling, and the effort it takes to jump high enough to make progress toward their goal is draining. It’s legitimately exhausting.

After about fifty consecutive tries if not more, Bucky deflates in Thor’s hold and struggles for a minute to catch his breath. A healthy layer of sweat soaks through his hair, darkening the bunched up strands with moisture where they hang down over his cheeks. The hair at his temples is especially drenched when he rubs at it lazily with his knuckles. Thor holds him, patient and unfazed by the weight even after having caught him at high speeds so many times in a row. Bucky’s legs drape over one arm at the knees, his back supported by a splayed palm.

“You look like the _Pietà_ ,” Natasha shouts over a noisy gust of wind.

Bucky squints the long way up and sees her aim a phone at them. He must look like a wet cat with his hair plastered to his forehead and his face all scrunched up. It’s too hard to tell with the wind and their distance if she’s still taking pictures, so he drops his head back. His belly tightens abruptly with a laugh when he sees that his slack neck completes the visual parallel Natasha observed.

Him as a Christ figure. God, but that’s rich.

The breeze is nice on Bucky’s face, cold on his overheated skin and drying the worst of the perspiration. One fat bead of sweat licks down his face from eyebrow to cheekbone. He looks up at the wall again and curses, starting to paw at Thor’s shoulders for leverage so he can have another go at their objective.

“What are you troublemakers doing out here?” Clint’s voice rings out several yards away.

Bucky peers over Thor’s head but doesn’t stop in his dexterous clambering, not even when he sees that Steve, Sam, and Maria Hill are with him. As far as Bucky knows, Tony’s the only one outside of their little group that has any idea what they get up to when they start brainstorming uses for the hammer in team building exercises. It should be interesting if this is the others’ first insight into what they do up on the sixteenth floor.

If having an audience gives him that extra incentive to make it up the wall, well, no one needs to know except Bucky.

“Hey, toss it,” he yells in Natasha’s direction while Thor’s interlacing his fingers to make a boost.

He leaps for the hammer and concentrates hard on tracking its shifting directional forces. The mallet side hangs down, giving him the best possible chance at making a fist around the handle without slipping off the flat end—which has happened exactly four other times. Setting his sights on the mallet gives him an easier target to blindly scrabble after for a handhold. 

In that split second that he has before Mjölnir decides to drop with him rather than fly up toward Natasha, he has to hoist himself up as high as he can. Balancing that juggling act with the timing of where her influence stops and his begins isn’t taxing, exactly. It isn’t _difficult_ in the way a math problem is difficult. It’s difficult in the way walking a perfect circle in the dark backwards while looking straight up might be difficult.

It’s confusing, like wires are crossing in his head and smothering his sense of direction. He forgets as he’s lifting himself with all his strength and willing the hammer not to fly too far out of his reach before he can grab it, that he’s climbing. He forgets that Natasha is up and Thor is down, and the moment he remembers—actually looks past the hammer itself and sees her just a few scant feet above him with the sky behind her—his focus shatters completely.

Natasha’s response is immediate. She swings down to a steel rung on the emergency ladder and stretches her free arm as far as she can to catch the handle before he falls. He dangles by the mallet, holding on with both hands and then with just the one when she tugs him close so he can reach the ladder himself. Her strength isn’t a shock to him, but he can’t help but be impressed. They climb the last three feet to the top and Bucky drops down immediately onto his back, shaking arms splayed out at his sides.

“Christ in Heaven,” he gasps. “Jesus. Shit.”

“Right?” Even Natasha’s out of breath, red-faced for the exertion of dangling off the side of a concrete wall to pull him to safety. She sucks in a few steadying breaths. “But we made it. Technically.”

Bucky hears Thor cheering from the ground. The wind disorganizes the full music of his voice, but it’s clear enough to Bucky that he’s ecstatic for their collective success. Natasha’s breathing is still thready when she hands the hammer back to Bucky and tilts her chin at the ledge. Bucky makes himself sit up, tired as he is, and gets Thor’s attention before dropping the hammer down for him to catch. Thor twirls the leather strap with learned finesse, shoots high above them, and floats down to their concrete platform.

The utility of it is a plain insult to Bucky’s screaming muscles, but his only reaction is to laugh. He stands at full height once his body no longer feels like it’s made of sticks and holds his arms out for the wind to cleanse the strain from his bones. 

“What did I just see?” Sam says to someone, maybe to himself.

“I honestly have no idea. Witchcraft probably,” Clint tells him. 

“We should’ve brought Bruce.” That’s Maria. “I bet he would know.”

“I don’t think _they_ even know what they’re doing,” Steve muses. 

Bucky smiles and places his hands on his hips and stares over the ledge at Steve. He’s too high up to properly look him in the eye. Steve tips his head back a fraction, acknowledging the attention and accepting it.

Curiosity wins out and their friends on the ground start making their ascent up the climbing walls the ‘proper way’. Bucky’s tired just watching them. Clint gets a running start, jumps for the ledge on the lowest wall, and leaps from platform to platform until he’s five feet away and four feet down on the second highest wall.

Natasha shakes out her legs briefly and jumps down to be on his level. Maria Hill stays on the third platform with them. Steve and Sam climb the full four obstacles, making the last daring leap that Bucky wouldn’t want to brave if he were following their approach.

“Man, you made that look about a hundred times harder than it actually is,” Sam huffs, sitting down with his legs pushed out in front of him.

“On the bright side,” Bucky muses, plucking Mjölnir from beside Thor’s hip. “Now we know we can do it…whatever _it_ was.”

Steve laughs at him, a soft sound that calms the roar of blood in Bucky’s ears. He’s been high on adrenaline and fear since they made the climb. Even as his body chemistry has liltingly slowed back to normal, their success has left him buzzing, vibrant with the rush of their small victory.

“Our training has been a boon for you,” Thor observes, all quiet reverence that stuns Bucky more than any other triumph they’ve earned in the span of this one day. 

“Yeah, Barnes,” Sam chimes in. “You look happy.”

Bucky feigns displeasure for a moment but lets it fall away when he sees that he isn’t bothered. Normally it would fluster him for his mood to be pointed out to him so plainly, but now he hardly even registers the fuzzy weight of their undivided attention. He knows he’s being stared at, certainly, but there’s nothing unwelcome attached to his awareness of them or vice versa.

“Guess it’s ‘coz I am happy,” he replies, slow to pick his words because he still understands how much they mean even if they don’t rattle around in his head after like usual. “We have fun, don’t we?”

A smile breaks slowly over Thor’s face like he’s enchanted at the notion. “We do,” he concedes. Raising his voice and turning his head, Thor keeps his gaze on Bucky as he half-shouts, “Natasha, are we in agreement that these encounters are a source of merriment beyond their utility?”

“Do you mean, was watching Bucky fall into your arms upwards of four dozen times today satisfying? Because the answer to that question is yes.”

Thor’s smile only gets wider. Bucky doesn’t even try to be cross or roll his eyes. Just as surely as he’s not going to come down from this platform until he absolutely can’t avoid it anymore, he’s going to stay swathed in his warm, safe bubble of happiness for as long as he can. He bites his lip to stave off a smile of his own and spins Mjölnir in his hand. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Steve watching and turns the handle toward him.

“Try your luck, soldier?”

Steve scoffs, lips curving up at both ends. He waves the offer off. Undeterred, Bucky raises his chin in Sam’s direction.

After considering the hammer and then Bucky for a few seconds, Sam shakes his head. “Nah, you know what, I’ve got enough on my plate right now without adding…” He traces a circle in the air with his palm. “All that.”

“Aye, ‘tis a hefty responsibility to shoulder,” Thor replies, cottoning onto what Sam’s saying before Bucky does. “Once Mjölnir chooses you, you are conscripted to its standards. You will always know when you are at your best and when you are found wanting. Those of us deemed worthy must be wise with how we harness the hammer’s power and the power within ourselves.”

Bucky brandishes the hammer in front of his face, squinting at the mallet. With audible trepidation creeping into his voice, he says, “Think Mjölnir’s gonna get pissed at us for horsin’ around today?”

“It is more than our hearts that are measured, Bucky. It is the call of your spirit that Mjölnir hears when you reach to take it.”

“Okay,” Bucky murmurs, slowly setting the hammer down. “That’s sounding like a yes.”

“It’s not,” Natasha tells him, standing up to face him from the shorter platform. “We’ve taught you how to be careful with it. You know it’s not a toy. You never treat it like it is.”

Bucky turns to face her head-on and spares a glance over his shoulder where Thor’s gesticulating at the moon, Steve and Sam attentively following the line of his finger. Natasha sits across from Bucky with her feet dangling over the ledge. He matches her and notes Clint and Maria facing in the other direction to give them some privacy. Behind him, Thor’s telling a story about the phases of the moon—it’s edging into early evening, but the sky is bright enough that the waxing gibbous moon is clearly visible directly overhead.

“I know every time you can lift it, you’re relieved.”

“Well, it’s like Thor said. Mjölnir’s honest.”

“Calls it like it is,” Natasha concedes. “No favors, not to anyone.”

He looks away, traces the far off line of trees that edge the property with his eyes. “Today wasn’t a favor?”

“Everything with Mjölnir is a lesson.” Natasha’s looking out to those same distant trees when he turns to face her again. “Maybe today was to show us that even weapon-shaped objects can be more than weapons. Just depends on how we use them.”

Bucky watches the trees with her and weighs what she’s said against the warmth resting firm in his chest. Given how badly his first attempt at sparring with her had gone, maybe there’s something to her claim that Mjölnir participates only in activities that it deems noble. It’s not impossible to believe that a hammer with the ability to judge a person’s heart could also judge what that person needs.

A sentient hammer, not that Bucky’s seen any save for Mjölnir, could potentially see what a person needs and then _decide_ to give it. Mjölnir’s acceptance of Bucky, for starters, has been nothing short of a miracle for him.

Getting to familiarize himself with its handling the way that he has, has allowed for uncounted leaps and bounds in his progress. He’s learned not only how he himself moves around the hammer but how Thor and Natasha move around it and him, each other. What they did today is a special kind of miracle, a special kind of intimate knowledge perfectly divided up among them.

 _With Mjölnir, too,_ Bucky thinks.

He’s left his prints and his sweat and his willpower all over it in the past two months. It _knows_ him; knows his limitations and the content of his character. So much more than an _it_ , this hammer.

“Do you ever think maybe Mjölnir’s less an ‘it’ and more a…I don’t know, a ‘she’, maybe?”

Natasha tilts her head to the side, pondering and staring at the wall between his feet. “Mjölnir. ‘She’ does sound more likely.”

“Thor, is Mjölnir a boy hammer or a girl hammer?” Bucky asks, turning to look at Thor over his shoulder.

He strokes his beard thoughtfully and holds his other hand out. Mjölnir goes to him gently, thrumming at the same frequency of a blade’s metallic whine. Thor stares at it with a serious set to his eyebrows, lips pressed into a line as he thinks. To look at him, Bucky wonders if maybe Mjölnir _can_ speak to Thor, in the transient language of memory and aesthetics.

“Mjölnir is genderless, but I understand the desire to humanize her.”

Bucky sneaks a glance over at Natasha. She smirks, nods. They stay up on the climbing walls until well past sunset. Bucky scoots over slightly to let Clint and Natasha clear the space between their platforms, for Sam to jump down after they come up, but he stays seated right on his ledge for close to an hour.

Maria and Sam head back down together once it gets dark. Steve and Thor continue to sit on either side of Bucky in companionable silence. Natasha and Clint stand behind them and take turns naming the constellations. Even after Natasha and Clint climb down via the ladder, Bucky doesn’t want to move from his spot. Thor reads his unwillingness to go inside as a drop in his mood, but it’s nothing so gloomy as all that. Bucky tells him.

“It’s nice out. The last time I watched the stars was before I went to prison.”

Accepting this answer, Thor stays with them a little while longer, telling amazing stories about a rainbow bridge and Valhalla and valkyries. He points to the stars as he speaks, like he can see beyond them to the other realm that he calls home. Bucky eats it up. It’s like a fairytale, but real.

When Thor decides that it’s time for him to turn in, he takes Mjölnir in hand and extends her to Bucky. It’s just reflex. Every sinew and tendon comes alive in gently taught anticipation as Bucky reaches for her, though he’s careful not to take her before she’s been given to him. His fingers close around the handle just below the mallet, overlapping Thor’s hand—she’s got quite a short handle; he’s never noticed.

Thor covers Bucky’s hand with his, never once relinquishing the hold he has on Mjölnir. The gleam in his eyes is fond and sincere. Heartfelt.

“Well done today, Bucky.”

Color warms his cheeks. “Thanks. Right back atcha, Thor.”

“Good night to you.” He slides his hand off Bucky’s knuckles, tugs gently on Mjölnir so that she slinks out of Bucky’s cupped hand. “And to you, Steve.”

“Good night, Thor.”

Choking back on the emotion stifling his throat, Bucky says, “Yeah, night.”

There’s a casual grace to Thor’s effortless push off the edge of the platform. He doesn’t even stand first; just gives enough of a shove to propel himself away from the wall and drops straight down. Bucky watches him stick the landing, shakes his head to himself, and waves when Thor gives them one final parting glance.

“He’s a good guy, that Thor,” Bucky murmurs, long minutes after their friend has disappeared from view.

Steve nods in calm agreement. He’s been quiet since they all came out to watch the spectacle with Mjölnir, sticking to softly spoken replies and nonverbal compliments. Bucky watches him closer as a result, taking in the view Steve’s giving him—his choice to come out here and to stay with Bucky after everyone left, the relaxed splay of his hands on his thighs, the undone buttons at the top of his nice collared shirt, his beautiful leather jacket.

So startlingly different than he used to be, but also unerringly the same Stevie. The serious-even-when-complacent set to his mouth is the same and the swooping left-ways part in his hair is the same and the tiny brushstrokes in his knuckles are the same. His laugh is the same. The blue of his eyes, the same.

Bucky’s got so much tightly bound emotion for him, surging and glowing like a forge in his chest. He wonders how he’s ever supposed to let any of it out; if it will burn him up from the inside out unless he releases it. Exposed, it roils just beneath the surface, irrepressible for Steve being so close to him; with joy being _so_ close. 

He wants so much to be different for them, but he’d also fight like hell to keep everything exactly as it is. 

All the things that are in his power to repair, he’s repairing them. All of the things that are out of his hands, he can only promise to be there; can only promise to withstand the turbulence and remain constant.

Some of it, it’s not his job to fix. About himself, or about Steve.

“I didn’t mean to try and take it from you, before,” Bucky says, keeping his voice soft and low, delicate because what he’s communicating is delicate. “When I said I forgave you for all that stuff. I didn’t mean that you weren’t allowed to hold onto it. Maybe I wish you wouldn’t, but it’s not my place to say what you feel or why. I’m sorry, it wasn’t right.”

“I’m not upset,” Steve murmurs back, speaking at the same tender frequency. “I wasn’t upset when it happened.”

“Doesn’t make it better.”

“You thought you were helping. It’s okay. I know the feeling.”

“Yeah, but…you can tell me if I say the wrong thing, you know? You can stop me and say,” he trails off briefly, making the face Steve makes when he knows what he’s about, affecting the bold music of Steve’s voice: “ _Buck, I love you, but you don’t know what the hell you’re talkin’ about._ ”

Steve chuckles, disarmed at Bucky’s exaggerated imitation. He smiles widely at nothing and shakes his head.

“Hey, I mean what I’m sayin’ here. You don’t take shit from me.”

“I don’t take shit from you,” Steve repeats, smiling still, softer, repeating what Bucky’s said just like Bucky does when Steve states past facts about him as present-day facts.

Bringing his knee up so he can face Steve instead of the training grounds, Bucky tells him, “You don’t take shit from me, ever.”

It’s one of the many reasons Bucky’s always loved Steve. At least he’s had this thought before—that he loves Steve, that he couldn’t be alive and breathing and _not_ love Steve.

Steve’s looking at him, serene and happy and probably knowing what Bucky knows. The last edges of a smile cling to the corners of his mouth, and Bucky blinks slowly, content to watch it fade and fade and fade. It starts to twitch into a laugh and Bucky blinks again, gaze jumping up to Steve’s eyes. They’re crinkled in silent amusement.

“I don’t take shit from you, ever,” Steve says, making it the truth, making it bigger than Bucky’s words alone could because he’s agreeing to let that be their reality.

Bucky smiles and drops his hands into his lap. He thinks he’d been gesturing with them.

“You really do look happy, Bucky.”

“I really am happy, Steve.”

“I’m glad. That, uh…” Steve waves his hand at the emergency ladder a ways behind them. “That thing you guys did was really something.”

“Thanks. It only took us fifty tries.”

“If it took you a thousand, I’d still be impressed.”

“Color me flattered,” Bucky mumbles, looking down to hide how his smirk stretches into a smile. “Still scared of heights, if you can believe it.”

Steve snorts. “Yeah? Wouldn’t know it to look at you, seein’ how you ignore it now about as often as you ever did.”

“Bein’ scared of somethin’ makes doin’ it more exciting,” he quips, looking up.

Eyes sparkling in the darkness, moonlight catching in his sun-colored hair, Steve says, “I know the feeling.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Right, I forgot, the G. in your name actually stands for ‘Grenade-Jumper’; they changed it for you in Basic. Silly me.”

“Okay, you know what, Bucky?” Steve murmurs, smirking because Bucky is smirking—because he didn’t defy gravity and climb a fifty foot wall so they could have this argument here. “Sometimes you gotta risk it to get the biscuit.”

“You— _what?_ ” Bucky tries really hard to hide his laugh, but it explodes out of him, shaking his shoulders with it like a great wind that calls on trees to dance. “Oh, you…Steve Rogers, you _nerd_.”

Steve isn’t the least bit scandalized. He looks more like a cat who got the cream, white teeth pressing down into his lip so he won’t laugh. Bucky laughs for both of them, delirious at the unlikelihood of this conversation and how everything about it should be impossible. But it’s happening. They’re laughing because Steve is a great big dork and Bucky’s no longer in a place of believing he has no right to see it, to be here with his friend.

“The thing with the grenade was a test,” Steve murmurs, shrugging. “If you think about it, it was my Mjölnir.”

Natasha’s words return to him: _‘Even weapon-shaped objects can be more than weapons. Just depends on how we use them.’_

Bucky sighs and holds his metal hand out so that moonlight gathers in his palm. The sleek surface glints like molten silver. Steve turns and brings his legs up onto the platform, knees brushing Bucky’s as he shuffles around to face him. He reaches out, haltingly, and because Bucky’s had this lesson drilled into his head by Thor and Mjölnir equally, his hand moves into that touch automatically.

The line of Steve’s shoulders relaxes. He starts tracing the edges of Bucky’s metal palm with curious fingers while Bucky looks on, nothing but the dimmest suggestion of pressure tickling at his collar bone.

“Banner thinks a cuff electrode can help me feel that,” he whispers, voice crackling through at odd, choked intervals. There’s an apology riding his tone somewhere, and he doesn’t know how it got in there or why.

Steve’s eyes are wide and vividly blue even in the dark when he looks up. “Oh,” he says.

Since he’s watching Steve’s face and can only see the minute shifting of Steve’s shoulder in the corner of his eye, he doesn’t actually know what Steve’s doing with his hand. It doesn’t occur to him to check. Somehow he understands that that’s not the point. Steve’s holding his gaze, intense, vaguely sorrowful, and repentant. It’s not pity; that much Bucky _can_ see.

The back of Steve’s hand grazes Bucky’s leg, friction at Bucky’s elbow making more sense with that context in mind. Steve has his palm affixed to the curve above the joint, staying there, touching.

“Did you know you still do that thing with your last two fingers, even on this hand?” Steve reaches for Bucky’s wrist with the hand not currently at his elbow. He slides his fingers down to the knuckles in Bucky’s hand, thumbs over the third and fourth ridges, and glances up to make sure Bucky’s following with his eyes now. “You scrunch them up when you’re concentrating really hard on something. These two stay flat and…”

Bucky curls his last two fingers up beneath the featherlight blanket of Steve’s hand. He’s seen that he has this habit of twitching his fingers, but he hadn’t noticed Steve noticing. Hasn’t ever noticed Steve noticing.

“You can already feel everything that matters,” Steve tells him, hand still poised daintily over Bucky’s.

 _You’re whole as you are,_ Bucky can hear in the steady rhythm of Steve’s heart.

He turns his hand, his own heartbeat careening into a reckless gallop. Metal fingers curl delicately around the edge of Steve’s palm. That hand relaxes and becomes heavier once Bucky takes to holding it.

“What if I wanna feel more than just the stuff that matters?”

“Bucky, I’m the last person in the world with any right to talk you out of an experimental surgery if you’ve got your heart set on it.”

In spite of how his heart’s still running away from him, Bucky snorts at that answer.

“I just…it feels important to let you know that…”

“I heard you the first time, Stevie,” Bucky mumbles, sliding his right hand over Steve’s so that he touches skin and metal both. 

Steve nods and slides his other hand down the length of Bucky’s arm until their hands pool in one concentrated spot between them. He laces his fingers through Bucky’s, skin smoothing along metal and along skin. Bucky rolls his lips together and squeezes Steve’s fingers in his, thinking back to a time when it might have been like this—back to any other time in their life when it was like this.

“It’s not new,” Bucky breathes, frightened at how his heart won’t slow down and how he can hear Steve’s picking up in tempo, too. “Is it?”

“Does it feel new to you?” Steve’s voice is less than a whisper.

“It hasn’t felt new since you chased me down the first time in Hell’s Kitchen. You got this way of lookin’ at me. Not very subtle.”

Steve raises his eyebrows. “Oh, _I_ have a way of lookin’ at _you_ , do I?”

Bucky laughs, unable to pretend he doesn’t get what Steve’s hinting at. “Yeah, Steve, you have a way of lookin’ at me.”

“All right, then does that make you the pot or the kettle?”

With a grand shrug that draws his attention back to their hands, Bucky bites back on another laugh once he thinks up a response. “What’s the one you use to make biscuits?”

A tiny breath hitches in Steve’s throat, and Bucky stares at him, wondering how much he’s succeeded in discarding the blank horror of his resting facial expression. The only picture he’s seen of himself recently is the one of him holding Mjölnir, grinning toothily at how light she felt in his hand. He twitches his lips into a soft smile, an easy thing to do what with his nerves finally sorted. Steve’s heart is still a little fast, but it’s nothing dangerous, nothing to fear.

“I’m gonna tell everyone you said that,” Bucky mumbles, smiling easier now that he’s started. “ _Sometimes you gotta risk it to get the biscuit._ ”

Steve licks his lips and grins, delighted. “Tell ‘em.” Says it like a dare. “Do it.”

“I will.” Bucky brushes his thumb over the pulse in Steve’s wrist. “You’re gonna rue the day, Steve Rogers.”

“Somehow…” He curls his fingers along the back of Bucky’s hands, his knuckles. “I really doubt that, Buck.”

And with the moonlight and the goddamn hand holding and the gazing, Bucky can’t be blamed for leaning in that short distance and catching the plumpest part of Steve’s cheek with his lips; can’t be blamed for feeling like they’re safe from everything up here. It’s the right combination of daring and prudence, and it’s only when he really feels the warmth of Steve’s face that he pauses right there, lips grazing skin and eyelashes fluttering at Steve’s temple.

It’s not the sort of thing one speaks around, but he still chokes out, “Um.”

Steve laughs against his cheek, strained. He doesn’t move. “If you want an out, you can tell me it’s a Russian thing.”

Bucky shakes his head. “It’s not a Russian thing.”

He hears Steve swallow, hears his tight breath in, feels him nod where their faces touch. Fingers sink into Bucky’s hair, rest at the top of his spine. He braces himself, but his body doesn’t run away from him again. Nothing about Steve is a threat. They’ve come to this point together. It’s safe up here. Nothing to be afraid of. Bucky waits a long time for Steve to move, but they stay as they are, soaking up each other’s warmth to combat the chill of nightfall. He stops worrying about what comes next and presses his forehead to Steve’s. 

Everything that matters, he has already. The rest of it can come later. He’s not in any rush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you I was stucky trash
> 
> Also, ha! This is not going to be finished before Civil War comes out. It's hilarious that I thought that was an option. I'm so cute sometimes, I swear.


	6. Steve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky kisses Steve to make a point and then keeps kissing him long after the point has been made. Basically, this chapter is the stucky that I have no idea how I waited this long to write.

The night he kisses Steve, Bucky has a nightmare. It’s hard to pull exact images from his memory once he jerks awake, but the taut stretch of his muscles and the scratch in his throat are telling enough. He screamed, he thrashed against the bed sheet now slipping off the edge of the mattress, and he managed to upend the side table, probably with his hand since the meaty part of his palm is buzzing with heat.

Recovery can be taxing when he does remember his dreams. Every once in a while, not knowing is worse; reminds him of years spent unable to tap that well of information. Makes him feel untethered like he’s fallen far and fast down a steep slope, like he’s pinned at the bottom of that incline.

He kicks bunched up sheets off his feet and roots around between his pillow and the headboard for Matt’s gray Pendleton blanket. It’s not small, so he drapes it easily around his shoulders, clutching it together in the front like he can repel his demons by keeping the warmth sealed in tight near his heart. Maybe that’s how it works. For a while, he sits on the bed with his knees and elbows drawn in close to his body. Hunching his shoulders and ducking his head makes his body smaller, more protected.

His mind races in the dark, chasing after murky scenes of bloodshed, explosions, firefights, and hissing machinery. He reimagines heart monitors and needles, tourniquets and soldering irons. Most nights when he wakes up in a state, it’s the Winter Soldier that’s tugging at his consciousness from the depths of his psyche.

Still, there are a few that come from his life before the mayhem used and possessed him, turned him from a person into this indefinable, surreal object. Sometimes he dreams of Rebecca, their parents, Steve, or the war.

He hardly ever revisits the train. It’s consistently present in his waking hours, though, so it’s not like he’s ever been free of it.

Bucky makes himself recall all of it, now, as much as he can. He goes over every fever with Steve, every funeral where he said goodbye to someone he loved, every shot he took from his sniper rifle, every time he woke up with Zola standing over him, and every kill he made as the Winter Soldier.

He goes over every time he made Rebecca laugh when they were young and every time he’s made her laugh since then. Remembers every time Steve has smiled at him, every time he knew—for the first time—that someone was making the decision to love him, and every time he felt himself making that decision in turn.

Every time he learned something new about himself that came as a surprise: how he loves Alton Brown and animals, how he can wield Mjölnir and defy gravity with her, how he’s getting better at stopping himself before he hurts the people he cares about on accident.

It’s impossible to get each individual memory, he knows. It’s a comfort to him anyway that he can collect so many. They’re not gone; no one has taken them from him this time. That confirmation is enough to have him weeping silently in relief and mitigated terror. Getting out of bed isn’t an entirely appealing idea, but past experience has taught him that moving around helps to calm him down if he’s jittery or upset. Right now, he’s both. 

Matt’s blanket stays cinched at his throat, caught in the trap of his metal hand. It brushes the floor and drags after him as he walks toward the door without righting the bed side table or tidying the bed sheets. He’s wide awake but exhausted from interrupted sleep. The mess will keep until after he’s properly slept.

Bucky steps out blearily into the dark hallway and leaves the door wide open behind him, careless, bold. He’s about to head in the direction of the bathroom to splash water on his face, but he hears someone behind him.

“Man, hey.”

Sam. His voice comes out low, tired, not meant for Bucky’s ears but not muffled so as to hide from him either.

He turns around and sees Sam nudging Steve awake. They’re slumped on the floor against the wall a few feet to the left of Bucky’s door. Sam yawns and scrubs his hands down his face, looking too groggy to be cranky about the sleep they’re making him miss.

“Bucky,” Steve says, tilting his head back so they can look at each other.

“Steve.” The name is a croak in the back of Bucky’s throat. “Sam.”

Sam nods, flaps one hand in a loose wave. “Hey, Barnes. All right?”

A platitude sits heavy on his tongue, right next to the apology burning up in the pit of his stomach. He sets his jaw and fidgets with the blanket balled up in his fists. His face is still wet with telltale tears. The more he worries it with his teeth, the more he becomes aware of the slight tremble overtaking his bottom lip. He tries to clear his throat, but some of his voice comes through in a broken grunt.

“Do you want to sit down?”

It’s too hard to look at Steve, though the question is his. Bucky looks at Sam instead, gauging his level of involvement and whether he plans on excusing himself or riding out the wave with them. Sam raises his chin, patting the floor to his right and Steve’s left.

“C’mon, stay a while?”

Steve gives him a nod when Bucky checks with him, skittish but trusting them. He crosses in front of Steve, sits between him and Sam with a _thump_ , and pulls harder on the blanket so that it swaddles him up tightly. His eyes scrunch closed, head tipped down as far forward as his spine will accommodate. He searches out his heartbeat and measures his breathing to it, slowly rocking back and forth to set a clearer metronome for his mind to follow.

“You can, um…” Bucky trails off, hardly speaking above a whisper.

Speech isn’t forthcoming yet, so he flails one hand out of its protective woolen net and plops it unceremoniously on Steve’s knee. His palm’s up, easy for grabbing, which Steve does; threads their fingers together without a word. Bucky feels him shift, cracks his eyes open to see what he’s doing, and turns to follow the line of Steve’s gaze where it falls on Sam.

Sam raises his eyebrows at Steve and then at Bucky. “Need me to go?”

“Stick around,” Bucky mumbles. “Please.”

He squeezes his eyes shut again and welcomes Sam’s hand on his back, welcomes the slow circles soothed in between his shoulder blades. Bucky doesn’t sleep, but he feels it when Sam nods off a while later. It’s endearing, actually; the minute shift from wakefulness to an exhausted doze. Sam leans on him in his sleep, though Bucky’s slow to realize that that’s what he’s doing since it’s his metal arm that’s taking the soft suggestion of another person. There’s pressure and the slow, heavy weight of a body gone slack with unconsciousness, but Bucky can’t feel him. Can only pick out traces of his body heat where Sam’s arm grazes his back.

Steve leans his head on Bucky’s shoulder with a cautious squeeze of his hand. Bucky squeezes back, thinking that maybe it means he’s okay—with his bad dreams, with Sam and Steve sleeping on him in some capacity, with staying in their current positions, or any combination thereof.

Tony brings them coffee on a tray in the morning. He raises his eyebrows at Steve and Sam blinking awake on either side of Bucky, though he had to know ahead of time that he’d discover them camped out in the hallway since there are three tiny cups on the tray. Bucky waits for both of them to straighten out before getting an espresso cup for himself.

Sam yawns and drinks his with milk and sugar. Bucky makes do with a single sugar packet. Steve gulps his coffee down black with nothing in it, humming curiously at Bucky’s visible distress. 

They chat some. Tony tries a few times to bring Bucky into the conversation, but Bucky deflects him each time by sipping his coffee. Sam gets up after he’s finished his and says he’s going to see about breakfast. Apparently they overslept enough for him to call off their usual morning run. Bucky would be embarrassed, but he’s stiff through the shoulder and his neck hurts and he can’t imagine Sam’s faring much better. The creakiness in Bucky’s joints will fade in an hour. Sam’s won’t.

He sets his emptied cup on the tray and stands to do some stretches, easing the worst of the soreness right there on the spot. Steve and Tony stay seated, having some kind of silent conversation with facial expressions. Bucky sighs, overlooks it, and inches over to his door to finally pull it closed. The mess he left looks worse than he remembers.

“I need to have the surgery,” he says, still facing the door.

“Yeah? What changed your mind there, sparky?” 

Bucky turns and looks at Steve, fingertips tingling faintly with nerves and memories alike. “Maybe feeling all of it’s what I need.”

“Well, ‘all’ is a _bit_ ambitious, but I like where you’re going with this, Barnes. Cool beans. Think you need more time with it, or can I give Doc Ramirez a ring?”

“Call her,” he says, even as Steve is standing up with a conflicted expression on his face.

With badly concealed urgency, Steve says, “Have they told you about the anesthesia they want to use?”

“No? Or wait, uh, Banner mentioned extraterrestrial something or other. Apothecaries? I think that’s what he said.”

Tony snorts and gathers the tray up. “And that’s my cue.”

Bucky watches him casually take off for the elevator and squints at Steve. He crosses his arms over his chest, waiting expectantly while Steve starts to sweat.

“Okay, don’t get mad. I had to.”

“You had to? You had to, what?”

“Oh, boy. Okay. The extraterrestrial apothecaries. Bucky, I had to. There was no other way for them to test the drug’s efficacy against a fast-acting metabolism like yours.”

“You…for Christ’s sake, Steve.”

“It didn’t have any harmful effects, and Thor had an antidote on hand in case anything—”

“An _antidote_? What is it, poison?”

“Well, no, it’s just, see, there’s a different process for humans. The tonic’s meant for Asgardians, so they’re able to flush it from their systems naturally, but we weren’t sure if the same could be said for us.”

Bucky makes himself breathe. He’s not angry, exactly; he’s something else. Steve notices. 

“Hey, are you all right?”

“ _No,_ I’m not. You can’t just do this shit, Steve. What if it had been toxic to humans? Did you think about that? What if the antidote ate through your stomach lining?”

“Tony tested it in the labs. He ran the numbers against Thor’s blood work and compared them with mine before and after. We were careful. And it’s not the first time I’ve sampled Asgardian pharmaceuticals. I already had some idea of how it’d affect me.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I may have gotten a little tipsy with Thor once or twice.”

“So, alcohol. You and my co-pilot booze it up. That’s what you’re telling me.”

“I can’t get drunk on anything else,” Steve admits, exasperation leaking out into his voice.

Bucky backs off then, irritation at himself fizzling out to make room for sympathy. He hasn’t much tried his hand at any kind of substance apart from the ‘doobie’ Wilson shared with him his last night of freedom before incarceration. Nothing had ever come from it but the taste it left in the back of his throat. Steve’s had plenty of reasons to want to make everything go a little numb over the years, and if his metabolism is anything like Bucky’s, Bucky has no difficulty believing that intoxication isn’t easily attainable.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Steve asks him with a frown. “I’m the one who’s been stressing you out since the Hoover administration.”

Steve steps closer, shoulders rolled back and arms coming up to cross his chest. Bucky steps forward, too, not quite anticipating what he means to do until he’s reaching out with his metal hand to trace the tendons in Steve’s forearm. He’s listening, so he knows how Steve’s breath catches for that first instant.

“I wish you wouldn’t risk yourself for me like that,” he says, a little plaintive, maybe, so sue him.

“I’m not about to let someone else do it. ‘Sides,” Steve murmurs, leaning his shoulder on the wall and turning his hand so Bucky can explore his palm and the underside of his wrist. “I wouldn’t trust it not to hurt you if I thought for a second that it could hurt me.”

It’s quiet in the hall. The faint hum of the A/C is the only other bit of ambience that isn’t a direct result of their bodies. Unlikely though it is, the rush of air in their lungs, the disjointed songs drummed out by their heartbeats, and the smooth glide of metal skating over skin sound much louder in his ears. Every once in a while, a shift of muscle lends to a quiet rustle of fabric—Steve’s shirt ruffling across his chest or the ends of Bucky’s sweatpants whispering over the tops of his feet when he fidgets.

He hadn’t given much thought to what he was wearing last night when he came out into the hallway with Matt’s blanket wrapped around him like a cape, but there’s a chill on his bare shoulders now. The tank top—one of Wilson’s picks—fits him like a potato sack, which he likes, with the hem bunched up at his hips. It’s a white shirt with a tired-looking cartoon cat on the front. Beneath it, the word _nope._

Bucky wouldn’t have thought to notice his choice of apparel at all if he hadn’t noticed Steve’s right at that moment: a simple gray shirt, probably cotton, with sleeves. They’re short, but still, sleeves.

“What?”

He must have a really serious look on his face for the concerned little wrinkle that knits into the space between Steve’s eyebrows. Bucky swallows around a surprise burst of oxygen in his mouth, feeling briefly like he’s choking on air.

Forgetting that it’s probably the most suspicious thing he could say, Bucky mumbles, “What?”

“You were staring. Your eyes sort of glazed over for a minute there.”

Bucky tries to calmly extricate himself from the close intimate bubble he’d immersed himself in, but Steve’s fingers chase after his hand. Before any other reaction he can have, Bucky’s glad for his persistence. There are times when delicately afforded distance is what he needs and wants, but to be held at arm’s length in every situation can be stifling and upsetting. He lets Steve capture his hand, lets himself be pulled back into their bubble. It’s welcome and warm. Steve’s hands are welcome and warm.

“I didn’t mean to freak you out with all that—with my being the guinea pig, y’know?”

“Yeah, I know. Thank you.”

Steve hums, a noncommittal sound that gets Bucky to meet his gaze. “Is that what you were thinkin’ about just now?”

“No, I was…”

Bucky catches his lip with his teeth and shakes his head to himself, ears burning hot like the back of his neck. He makes a quiet helpless sound of frustration that causes a smile to spread wide and beautiful over Steve’s face.

“Bucky, what?”

Hell, it’d actually be less mortifying to show him than to breathe life to the words, _Actually I was ogling you. No big deal, right?_

He settles for what he thinks could be construed as a middle ground and grabs Steve’s arm, thick with muscle. For some reason, the lie by omission still sours on his tongue, forcing a string of words out of him that brings the heat of blushing from his neck and ears to his face proper.

“I was thinkin’ I could look at you all day.”

Steve blinks and Bucky blinks, too. He swallows hard against another awkward gulp of air.

“That’s—you can forget I said that. I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Oh.” But instead of sounding weirded out or put off, a smile starts flickering over his mouth. A pink mist floods his cheeks and dabs over the bridge of his nose. He shrugs without dislodging Bucky’s hand from its perch on his bicep. “Well, I’d let you.”

“Would you?”

“Yeah, Buck, I would. If I got to look at you, too, that is.”

A soft hum begins and dies in the back of Bucky’s throat, just a muted stutter of noise that seems to sober Steve up some. He lifts his hand and clasps his fingers around Bucky’s wrist in a loose manacle.

“Want me to help you with your room? Thought I heard something big hit the floor last night.”

“I can manage it alone.”

“Yeah, but you…” Steve looks down, chin tipping forward and nearly brushing Bucky’s temple with his forehead—and holy _shit_ , they’re standing close. “You don’t have to.”

Bucky recalls the brassy glint of a key in the late afternoon sunset, the distant shuffling of people mulling about on foot, and cars rumbling down the street a block away. He remembers Steve’s shoulder beneath his hand, not unlike now but also wholly changed—a difference of size and girth, maybe, but the same noble heart, the same strength of character, the same indestructible force of will.

“All right,” he concedes without meaning to drop his voice so low, though maybe that’s exactly how he means it.

Steve swallows and lowers his hand before Bucky takes his own back. Bucky steps around him to gather up the wool blanket from its jumbled heap on the floor. He shakes it out, drapes it over one arm, and pushes the door to his room open so Steve can follow him inside.

The room isn’t an obliterated mess, but it’s clearly in a state of disarray that’s uncharacteristic of its inhabitant as Bucky tends to err on the side of tidiness. He keeps most of his things in their allotted places for the sake of staying organized and isn’t keen on allowing clutter in any form. The busiest area is the bookshelf, and only one shelf is stocked to capacity with books, leaving the other six completely bare. That’s the usual state of things in Bucky’s room, everything in order down to military corners and precise use of negative space.

Case in point, he keeps a bookshelf-sized gap dead center in the floor for the singular purpose of hindering an intruder’s assault should he ever come under attack here. It’s meticulous, his utilization of the room’s simple, sparse architecture.

So it’s with mild consternation that Bucky really takes in the destroyed bedside table with its legs flung into the air, the mattress misaligned diagonally along its elegant wooden frame, and the malformed lump of bedsheets spilt halfway onto the floor, trailing off the side of the bed like a canopy. He walks in with his shoulders hunched up defensively and focuses on folding the blanket in his hands while Steve rights the broken table.

Bucky sets the folded blanket beneath his pillow, pushes the mattress until it sits correctly on the box spring, and piles the wrinkled sheets back onto the bed in the order that they go: the thin cotton layer first, followed by the cushy comforter that he probably enjoys burrowing under too much. Steve’s still fiddling with the table while Bucky hunts around for the plush bear that’s currently eluding him.

“It’s a lost cause,” he says of the table, peering under the bed for his softer counterpart, his avatar.

“I could fix it if I had a screwdriver, I bet.”

Steve grunts, there’s a splintering of wood, and then all is silent. Bucky sits back on his knees, eyebrows frowning enough that his mouth doesn’t have to.

“Oh. Uh, okay, well…” Another weak snap of wood. “I bet I could still fix it with a screwdriver.”

“It’s fine. Steve.” Bucky’s laughing. He can’t see around Steve’s back; can only see him struggling with something even as he starts to get to his feet. “Hey, ease up. You’ll give yourself a splinter if you don’t quit.”

Steve looks up at the moment that Bucky looks down at the project he’s made of the beside table, ready with a quip that dies on his tongue. He’s confused at first when he sees the Bucky Bear and the position it’s twisted into, trapped as it is between the damaged drawer and the body of the table. It seems to have gotten wedged in tight, mostly undeterred by Steve’s attempts to dislodge it.

His heart leaps up into his throat, beats despondently in his mouth where it’s hardest to speak around.

“You’ll give yourself a splinter,” he says, but it sounds hollow and fractured coming out of him.

“I’ve nearly got him.” Steve’s voice is a quiet protest, gently confident and resonant with understanding. “But the drawer won’t budge, and if I pull now, I might tear something.”

“Is that…” Bucky leans in to get a closer look. The ringing in his ears dims. “Jesus, it’s the arm, isn’t it? Goddamn it.”

“Well, right now, it’s sort of his head that’s stuck.” Steve lightly prods at the plush face of the bear, puffed up around the wood clamping into it. “I don’t want to chance ripping the eye or ear pieces since they’re sewn on. Honestly, the arm’s probably in better shape.”

Bucky sighs and drops down with his back to the bed. He sits with his legs crisscrossed, hands folded in his lap where they’re least likely to do anyone harm. Steve glances askance at him, pausing in his work to lie the table on its side so the bear won’t dangle or be further crushed while they wait. He starts to stand but stops, looking once more between Bucky and the mangled bear.

“Are you okay?”

“It just figures.”

Steve comes and sits next to Bucky. Their shoulders brush. “What does?”

“The time I fell asleep in Weasel’s apartment, I broke Wilson’s jaw comin’ up from a nightmare. Thought I’d hurt the cat at first, but they planned for that, got her out of the way.” He watches his hand curl into a fist, loosen, and tighten again. “Then at Matt’s, I used to think it was only a matter of time before I’d find a way to hurt him, too. He didn’t see the threat, but I told him. I told him.”

Steve doesn’t patronize him by pointing out that the current recipient of his accidental destructive streak is an inanimate object. He doesn’t say anything for the first minute or so, and while he’s letting the silence speak for him, Bucky remembers the other time he hurt someone in the midst of waking.

He hasn’t said the words yet, has only begun to form them on his lips when Steve softly, swiftly cuts in.

“Buck, don’t.”

_I hurt you. I hurt you, too._

But he doesn’t say it with his mouth, and it feels, somehow, like a kind of victory. Keeping that darkness away from Steve’s light makes his blood sing a little. Finally, something he can control.

He even agrees with Steve, once he really stops to think about it. When he was with Steve in the theater room, he hadn’t been afraid while he was under; he’d been relaxed, comfortable enough in his lowered guard to doze off in the first place. Waking up had been the problem. That split second of terror, thinking his life had been wrested away from him again because he didn’t recognize his surroundings in time, was the thing that set him off.

Not Steve. 

Actually, seeing Steve, for Bucky, was clarity. Seeing Steve is never anything _but_ clarity to him.

Clarity after Zola, the first time Bucky saw Steve post-serum; clarity on the streets of D.C. when Steve spoke his name; on the muddy banks of the Hudson River; outside Nelson & Murdock; in prison when they knew one another again. Steve is his foundation.

“It’s different with you,” Bucky says, the former litany of _I hurt you_ dying away in the back of his mind. 

“How do you mean?”

“Before I could even understand it, you were my safety. Shelter.”

Steve’s staring at him, openly perplexed and riveted at whatever foolish emotion Bucky’s showcasing in his expression. A tiny wrinkle pinches tension between his eyebrows and he looks away. Bucky’s head tilts in that direction as if tugged by a string, yearning to follow that impulse without any notion of the reason behind it.

He flicks his gaze down to Steve’s hands, balled up tightly in the flannel stretched over his thighs. It wouldn’t be the most farfetched thing to wonder if he’s misread Steve’s intent up until now. He doesn’t _think_ he’s been wrong about how Steve looks at him, how his touch can sometimes burn in the same beat that it soothes. If he is wrong, then he’s not ashamed to have thought or felt as he has. He’s been honest. It’s a tremendous gift that he doesn’t regret: the ability to speak his truth plainly to someone who means so much to him.

And yet. His heart sinks at the conclusion he draws at Steve’s prolonged silence.

“It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way.”

“I can’t imagine _not_ feeling the same way,” Steve murmurs without hesitation but reluctant all the same. He leans back into the side of the mattress and turns his head to look fully at Bucky, eyes bright with hope and remorse equally. “You’re my home. You always were.”

“Then why do you look so unhappy?”

“Because sometimes I feel like we’re inevitable and I don’t like it.”

“Well.” Bucky shrugs, not really crushed by this answer since he doesn’t quite understand it. 

“No, it’s only that…I used to worry a lot that you felt like you had to humor me, before. I mean, you definitely did in the beginning. I was just some guy trying to hang onto what was and you didn’t know me from Adam, but then you did and I don’t know. The world’s so much bigger than it used to be. Maybe us coming back together is just convenient—the easiest thing, the most predictable response.”

His heart’s pounding unevenly in his chest, but Bucky still manages to scoff, saying, “Nothing’s ever easy with you.”

“You hear what I’m getting at, though, don’t you? Tell me I’m talkin’ a load of nonsense or that I’m full of shit, by all means. I just know that it’s a fear I got, right in here.” Steve knocks his fist into his sternum and holds it in place, blue eyes gone serious. “I never want to stand in the way of you makin’ a choice, Bucky.”

Bucky gulps around his nerves and covers Steve’s hand with his own, faintly aware of the racing heartbeat beneath Steve’s knuckles and the pulse in his wrist. He tugs at that hand until he can gently tug it away from Steve’s chest.

“Best that you get outta my way then,” he whispers, cupping Steve’s cheek in his other hand.

Steve’s eyelashes flutter for his rapid blinking and then Bucky’s too close to see, eyes slipping shut with that final bit of compressed distance. His lips meet too fast with Steve’s, a hardened mouth sliding roughly over one gone slack in surprise. Bucky holds fast, not allowing his resolve to falter since Steve doesn’t draw back from him. He softens the set of his mouth, the shape of the kiss he presses more earnestly into the swell of Steve’s bottom lip.

It ought not to inspire a lot of enthusiasm, his clumsy approximation of a kiss, but then Steve moves. Such a sinuous, beautiful shift how he does it—and Bucky can’t see, but he’s aware at a deeply physical level of how it happens. Some sort of roll through Steve’s shoulders that flicks up the proud column of his neck and twitches through his jaw.

He turns into Bucky’s lips and steadies him with a hand on the back of his neck, mouths at the seam of his lips so delicately that Bucky shivers and presses in closer. Steve’s lips are featherlight, so Bucky makes his own soft to match. The tenderness of it is a brilliant burning star coiled up behind his ribs.

Warm breath puffs out over his mouth, colored darkly by caffeine and a little sour with the morning. Bucky loves it. He loves that they’re not prepared—that events weren’t set into motion to make this moment perfect by any standards yet exactly what he needed. He loves that they’re in their pajamas and sitting on the floor of his bedroom and that Steve’s skin smells faintly of wood shavings from all his fuss earlier with the end table.

His heart is full with how much he loves, and the truth is a live wire in his hands—a bolt of lightning coursing down from heaven itself and funneling into his soul, electrifying his skin.

Steve gasps into Bucky’s mouth, breathing him in and not minding his stale, sugary coffee taste either. That, or he cares _too much_ to notice it. He threads his fingers reverently into Bucky’s hair, mouth skipping and stalling on the cusp of Bucky’s parted lips. The too-bright euphoria of what they share in this moment—and always—is something fragile, something precious. It is sentiment bold enough to break the fiercest of chains.

Bucky can’t speak of it. It’s too heavy, too powerful to be contained in a word. So Bucky kisses him instead and telegraphs his meaning with the graceless pass of his tongue between Steve’s lips.

It could maybe be unbearable for how good it is, but Steve stops them, shifts away a fraction of an inch so that a soft wet sound smacks with their separation. He murmurs Bucky’s name into his cheek, tuts a fretful sigh, and relents to be kissed again because Bucky finds it harder to stop himself once he gets started. 

The slow heat of it is wonderful, like carefully peeling back silky rose petals and sinking his fingers down to the bud. Steve’s tongue is soft, careful but languid in its exploration. He doesn’t plunge, doesn’t move too fast, doesn’t go rigid or twitchy when Bucky shuffles closer still to lean into him, to ground them so they don’t get carried off in the tide of their eagerness.

That’s what it is. Bucky’s mouth on Steve’s is eager, desperate not to let this moment pass him up before he’s had his fill of it. Steve’s kisses are patient, wary of taking any of it for granted.

Steve breathes his name once more into the curve of Bucky’s jaw, shy and exhilarated at the same time. Bucky gets it, knows perfectly well why this first encounter must remain moderately tame, though they’ve thrown ‘innocent’ to the wind. The last string of kisses is anything but. Bucky chases after them inarticulately, blindly seeking more.

“Hey,” Steve mumbles, smiling against Bucky’s lips. “Slow.”

Bucky nods. He’s okay to tap the brakes, drops Steve a few more kisses for good measure and keeps ‘em chaste so they both get a chance to simmer down. Steve relaxes and noses at Bucky’s skin, his hairline, and further back along his scalp. He laughs, breath tickling the shell of Bucky’s ear.

“Remind me not to get in your way,” he says.

“Remind you like that?” Bucky muses right back at him, smirking. “Sure thing.”

Steve snorts. “Everyone’s gonna know by lunchtime.”

“Steve, I’m pretty sure everyone’s known for years now already.”

There’s already a lovely pink tint brightening Steve’s cheeks, but it flares up noticeably into a dull red at that comment. Bucky leans in that tiny distance and warms his lips against that fire. He does it because he can.

His stomach eventually breaks up their nice bit of quiet time by growling noisily for breakfast, so they go and do that. Steve holds his hand under the table while they eat and Tony bounces his eyebrows at Bucky in wordless approval that Bucky tries really hard—but fails—not to smirk at. They go back to Bucky’s room afterwards with a toolbox and pry the drawer apart to free the Bucky Bear. It’s a little squashed about the head region with some obvious snags in the fabric that Bucky feels immensely guilty about, but it’s salvaged, for the most part.

Steve hands it over to Bucky for closer inspection and he picks out the splinters with his metal hand. The bear’s slight disfigurement may even be more apt than a torn off arm would have been. Bucky stops himself from reading too far into it and places the bear on the shelf where it should be safe from him.

The rest of the day is fairly typical, with the exception of sometimes ambushing Steve with experimental bursts of affection. It’s a pretty great addition to his routine if he’s honest.

**Bucky (4:37 PM)**  
**So I kiss Steve now, that’s a thing**

**Wade (4:40 PM)**  
**!!!!!!!!!!**

**Karen (5:14 PM)**  
**Oh my gosh Bucky ;p**

“I don’t think you meant to text me that,” Steve says, snorting a laugh and pocketing his phone.

“Oh.” Bucky glances at his phone, shrugs, and tosses it over his shoulder. He swipes the remote from Steve’s other side, flipping through the Netflix home screen on the theater room TV. “Guess you were on my mind.”

“Thanks,” Steve muses and it comes out partly as a chuckle.

He makes a slow grab for Bucky’s ankle and piles his feet in his lap when Bucky’s response is to jokingly kick at him. Bucky puts on some French film, turns the volume down so they can hear it but easily talk over it, and surrenders the remote when Steve reaches for it. They watch a good chunk of the movie and Bucky gets a foot rub out of it, which is nice.

About halfway through, he gets distracted and turns Steve into a bed. As it happens, Steve’s pecs make a fantastic pillow. Bucky tells him as much while he’s getting cozy, nestling his ear in right over Steve’s thundering heartbeat. Steve tightens his arm around him and hums.

“Sure it’s not just ‘coz you like to be touched?”

There’s a thought. He liked walking arm in arm with Karen even before they had started to really bond and learn each other. Wrapping a hug around Wilson had been a comfort to him early on, too.

Bucky wriggles, fitful for a moment, and looks up at Steve. “Can’t it be both?”

“Yeah, Buck,” he murmurs, smiling. “It can be both.”

Bucky has no idea what they’re doing. It’s a little reassuring that Steve doesn’t know either.

Their renewed closeness scratches an itch beneath his skin that couldn’t be assuaged with words. It’s not just the kissing either, though that’s nice enough to merit its own category separate from everything else. He loves the tiny brushes of fingers on his shoulder, down his arm; loves the slow smiles that Steve can’t shut off when they’re together. The stuff with Steve is great, but his point about Bucky being touch-starved in general holds true. 

He’s worried that Samson will discourage him, but Samson only informs him that it’s normal to crave different types of interaction from different types of relationships. Naturally, Bucky can’t stop worrying that he’s making a selfish choice or offering something that he can’t deliver on. Samson’s reasonable assumption about these concerns is that Bucky’s freaking out about sex. 

Bucky’s not, he doesn’t think. Steve isn’t going to make him do anything he doesn’t want.

So far, all they do is neck like teenagers and Bucky’s not in any rush to try for something more. A few times, sure, maybe he gets a little overwhelmed at Steve’s hand in his hair or his arm around Bucky’s back, but then all they do is back off until the urgency fades. Everything ticks down to a tolerable threshold, they keep kissing or they don’t, and life goes on.

Later in the week, he meets Karen and Matt at the office to go grab up his books. Matt has them piled in a box by the door and brings it out to Bucky while they’re standing outside the practice. Foggy’s still inside gathering up his things, so Bucky sticks his head in the door and calls out a greeting. 

“Barnes! Hey, just a sec. I’m nearly done.”

Bucky shrugs and holds the door with his foot, leaning up against the doorframe. Karen covers a smile with her hand when Foggy comes out and spreads his arms wide for a hug. Bucky sets the box down and goes for it, holding on longer than Foggy intended but receiving no complaint. It’s nice to see him again. Plus, there’s the whole touch-starved theory that stopped being a theory a while ago. He doesn’t care how it looks. Foggy gives really good hugs and looks happy when they let go of each other.

“We’re going to Josie’s, Matt and I. You wanna come along?”

“Oh, thanks.” Bucky picks up his box, perching it against his stomach so it settles easily between his metal arm and his belt. “I should get these back to the Tower.”

Foggy nods. “Your palate’s probably a bit more refined anyway.”

Laughing a little, Bucky says, “It’s definitely not.” He turns to Karen. “Are you going?”

“No, I wanted to turn in early.”

“I can walk you home,” Bucky offers, casual in a really, truly impressive way.

Karen flashes a grin and laces her arm through his, careful not to jostle the box, saying, “Good, then we can catch up.”

“Well, you already know most of what’s been going on with me,” he mumbles, self-conscious.

They all start walking in the same direction up the street, Foggy and Matt pulling up ahead of them. Bucky leans sideways to brush her shoulder with his. She glances at him in question before deliberately swaying against his side, a private tiny smile twitching onto her lips.

“So everything’s still okay then?”

“Yeah, we’re kind of figuring things out, I guess. Not talking about it but not hiding it either.”

“You’re talking about it,” Karen teases, bumping his shoulder.

“Well. Okay, yes.” He snorts and doesn’t miss how Karen presses her lips together to stifle a laugh. “But you’re my friend. I don’t care if you know about Steve and me.”

“Did I hear that right?” Matt asks, evidently curious and tipping his head in their direction.

Karen looks at Bucky with raised eyebrows. She’s kept his confidence. Bucky’s more surprised that Matt hasn’t heard the story from Tony or Wilson by now.

He’s not shy about it. It’s no trouble at all to repeat himself. “Yeah, Steve and me.”

“Ah.”

“Dude!” Foggy whips his head around with a huge grin on his face. “Excellent!”

“I didn’t know if you were telling everyone,” Karen tells Bucky in a stage whisper.

“That’s sort of exactly what I’ve been doing,” Bucky deadpans, unashamed. 

“Well, looks like I owe Nat a twenty.” Matt clears his throat.

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Serves you right. You keep bettin’ against Natasha, she’s gonna clean you out.”

“This is so great,” Foggy’s saying, maybe to himself. “I feel like we should throw a party. Matt, let’s throw a party.”

Matt nods like he’s not going to fight Foggy on his suggestion, which is a little worrying, and branches right with him while Bucky and Karen walk left, waving as they split up. Karen asks a stream of noninvasive questions about life in the tower. Once they get on the topic, she wants to hear tell of Mjölnir and what it’s like being one of the chosen few. He gets flustered at how her questions are framed, but he answers in his own time. She listens, rapt.

He’d honestly forgotten how easy it could be talking to Karen. She invites him up for popcorn and hot chocolate once they get to her apartment, and he follows after her like a puppy.

That’s how they end up sitting on the floor in front of her couch gossiping about Steve, the box of books left by the door somewhere with his boots. Karen’s sat upright with her legs stretched out in front her, crossed at the ankles. Bucky twists over to lie on his back with his knees propped up on the edge of the cushions, ankles also crossed and toes brushing the couch back.

“Tony thinks I’d be good to have on the team,” Bucky says after a time, unprompted.

Karen is still working on her mug of hot chocolate, but every once in a while she plucks a few pieces of popcorn from the bowl balanced on his stomach, tiny vibrations scratching through glass. She hums thoughtfully at his statement but doesn’t reply. He’s not exactly waiting for a response, but her silence still reads like an invitation to say more.

“Apparently they’ve all had pretty gnarly pasts. It’s not just them, I know.” He glances haphazardly at Karen, noticing how she goes just a touch still at the attention. That’s in no way a conversation he intends to open tonight, if ever, so he pretends not to see. “If they can turn it around, then I oughta be able to. Could be why it doesn’t feel impossible anymore.”

With a warm smile and a soft voice to match, she tells him, “I’m glad you’re starting to see yourself how we see you, Bucky.”

“Yeah,” he mumbles, looking at the ceiling in an attempt to hide his blush. “Took me long enough.”

“It’s a process. Here.” She takes the bowl of popcorn into her lap, freeing him to sit up. She shakes her mug. “I’m gonna make some more. Do you want another cup?”

Bucky stays over late drinking hot chocolate and falls asleep on the couch at Karen’s insistence. It’s not the first time they’ve slept in somewhat close quarters, so he’s not worried about whether the proximity makes him dangerous to her. As long as he keeps enough distance that he won’t wake thrashing, they’ll be fine. He was worse off the first time they shared a room back at the church, and here they’ve got the hallway and her bedroom door separating them.

Knowing that she’s nearby is nice. It’s like when he’d slept in Matt’s room curled up on the floor, comforted by the fact that he wasn’t alone.

He wakes with her alarm before dawn, a text from Tony waiting for him on his phone.

**Tony (4:30 AM)**  
**pls confirm that u r with my girlfriend’s girlfriend so that ur boyfriend can wake up 2 some good news**

There aren’t any texts or missed calls from Steve on his phone, so Bucky can only hazard a guess at his reaction when Bucky left yesterday evening and failed to come back. He imagines silent panic. Tony makes it sound like he’s in need of reassurance, so Bucky texts him directly.

**Bucky (5:15 AM)**  
**Steve tell me you weren’t waiting up for me**

He doesn’t get a reply straight away, which he’s happy about. It would leave a bad taste in his mouth if Steve had been awake all night worrying about him. Bucky’s got half a mind to be offended, but only half; maybe less. Bucky did leave him on a river bank and disappear on him after all.

If Steve’s still nervous about him taking off without giving word, it’s not like he can really hold it against him. The old wounds are forgiven, but forgetting them is an impossible task.

While he’s waiting for a reply, Bucky listens to the sounds of Karen rummaging around in her room, getting ready for the day. There’s a wall and several feet between them, so he only catches odds and ends. She still manages to sound graceful to his ears, but maybe that’s the work of his whimsical early morning mind more than anything else. Bucky’s folded up his blankets and pulled his boots on by the time Karen’s up and ready to go.

He walks her to the office, sticks around to sneak a bagel, and ends up staying an extra hour just to soak in their company. Foggy’s got a hangover and Matt’s face is relatively clear of bruises for a change. Karen is immaculate as she’s wont to be.

**Steve (7:12 AM)**  
**Sam made me go to bed eventually**

**Bucky (7:17 AM)**  
**Did you sleep? I’m on my way back now.**

Steve doesn’t reply in the next ten minutes, so Bucky calls him as he’s walking out of the office with his box tucked up under one arm and the phone held securely in his right hand.

_“Hey, Bucky.”_

“Are you okay? I was with Karen. We just…” He pauses, squinting at the noise. “Where are you?”

_“Um, I’m on a jet, actually. There was a situation. We had to pack up and go about an hour ago.”_

Bucky stops walking, flicks his gaze overhead without any real reason. He says, “Oh,” and it comes out like a dejected little sigh. Trying to cover for himself, he quickly redirects. “Where?”

 _“Damascus. It’s—well.”_ He sighs, a fitful sound. _“It’s complicated, I guess. Politically, it’s a mess, but it looks like we might be able to stop something worse from happening. If there’s a chance, we gotta take it, right?”_

“Sure, yeah,” Bucky says, meaning it, though he’s mumbling. “Anyone stay behind?”

_“Thor and Dr. Banner did. They thought it’d be for the best. We brought Sam and Rhodey in their place.”_

Makes sense. They left behind their demolitions experts, trusting the scalpels among them to suffice in the absence of their hammers. Probably a good move. He could see how it would go over better than loosing the Hulk or one of Thor’s lightning storms onto an already devastated city.

“And here I thought you were cross about me not checking in last night.”

 _“Buck,”_ Steve laughs his name, low and warm like a brush of warmth down Bucky’s spine. _“I mean, I would’ve liked to see you before we left, of course I would’ve. But you hardly ever leave the tower anymore if it’s not for your appointments with Samson. I wasn’t gonna take last night from you.”_

“You could’ve taken the morning,” Bucky grumbles, not in the habit, now, of wanting to kiss Steve without being able to act on it.

Steve’s laugh is music, gleeful and boyish in his ear. Bucky carries it with him back to the Tower and takes an hour organizing his books on his shelves. It takes him longer than it ought to because he argues with himself over whether he should make the arrangement tactical (pack the books in tightly center-mass) or aesthetic (alphabetized and scattered artfully through the huge bookcase). He ends up snapchatting the options to Wade and then to Banner.

They both vote for the visually pleasing arrangement, which shouldn’t surprise him. Bucky goes with their judgment since he secretly wanted them to choose it anyway and wanders up to a training room. Instead of the one he usually frequents with Natasha and Thor, he goes to the one Wanda and Pietro have all but claimed as their own.

Pietro has warmed over to Bucky considerably. Wanda was always more inclined to give him a chance, but she’s settled into a calm, low-burning trust that he reciprocates wholeheartedly. She trusts him not to hurt them much like he trusts them not to hurt him.

Bucky’s still of the opinion that he can’t take either of them in a fight, but he’s also come to understand that they were never afraid of him in that capacity. The ammunition they’ve given him is far more dangerous for it. He treats it with the awe and respect that it deserves; their bond with him is something sacred, forged out of kindred suffering and healing alike.

He still wants to teach them how to hold their own in a scuffle if they ever get depowered for one reason or another. Since the two of them form a pair, he can even do it without his feet ever hitting the mat alongside theirs. Wanda has a better idea than her brother of how to balance and channel the innate flow of her muscles, but Pietro really gives it his best shot.

They break for lunch after about an hour, and Bucky feels great about the whole thing. Pietro grumbles about a bruised rib. Wanda eagerly talks strategy in between bites of pizza. Once, she gets embarrassed for how she talks before swallowing, covering her mouth with a napkin as if to hide it retroactively. Bucky’s not having that; he gets a spatter of sauce on his chin, licks crumbs off his fingers, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. His eating like a caveman helps some to get her to relax again, so he keeps it up.

 _And_ he also sort of just naturally eats like a caveman. It’s for a good cause.

Bucky corrals them out onto the training grounds afterwards so they can get some sun in while their lunch settles. Wanda sits on the grass flanked on both sides by Bucky and her brother, fiddling idly with red wisps of telekinetic energy while they look on. She invites Bucky to try and touch it, but he doesn’t trust it not to hurt purely on principle. It looks like fire on steroids. Touching it goes against every one of his evolutionary instincts.

Pietro holds his hand out in Bucky’s place and Wanda weaves that crimson light around his fingers, knitting precise patterns out of thin air. He asks if it’s hot or cold, and Pietro says it’s both while Wanda says it depends. Bucky keeps his hands to himself. It’s fine with him if it stays a mystery.

Thor finds them as they’re walking back inside. The kids needle at him until he agrees to accompany them to a training room. At Pietro’s insistence, Bucky carries Mjölnir and lets him examine her engraved mallet on the elevator. Wanda talks quietly with Thor while Pietro and Bucky take turns pointing at Mjölnir, making incredulous faces at each other. They default back to neutral expressions when Wanda points a befuddled look at them over her shoulder.

Bucky might have anticipated their game in asking Thor up with them, but he manages to be caught off-guard all the same at their suggestion that they fight. It’s not an unreasonable request either.

He was showing them the ropes earlier, but he wouldn’t get more hands-on than merely correcting their postures with cautious pats of his fingertips. Bucky wanted to see Thor and Natasha in action when he took to training regularly with them. It only gives him pause that they’re asking for a demonstration because Bucky hasn’t fought one-on-one with Thor yet.

Natasha can wrangle a semblance of control out of him when they fight, but he’s far from carrying himself with finesse in combat. He hasn’t broken his habit of fighting like he’s in a life-or-death kind of scrape.

Thor spreads his hands graciously and gives Bucky a gold-radiant smile. He says, “I am not opposed.”

“You think I’m ready?” Bucky whispers, throat rasping a little for his nerves. 

“Yes, Bucky. I am in no danger from you, nor are they.” He glances at them where they’re standing a few feet off by the door, openly eavesdropping. “We are suited to contain you in the event that we must, but there will be no need for such precautions. I have faith in you.”

“Us, too,” Pietro says, stepping forward.

Wanda matches him. “It’s true.”

It would be an understatement to say that he’s gobsmacked by their unwavering declarations. He’s too embarrassed to let that single emotion roll over him in waves like it wants to, so he sets Mjölnir down gently on the floor, shrugs out of his jacket, and works his boots off his feet. Thor marches happily onto the mats once he’s taken off his own shoes—they’re more slippers, once Bucky properly looks at them, but he’s not judging. They look orthopedic as hell.

He puts his hands up, palms out, once they’re both squared up and ready to go. Thor edges closer and places his palms in alignment with Bucky’s, wordlessly comprehending his intent.

“If I get wild, don’t let me,” he hears himself saying, voice tattered right at the edges and fearful. “Stop me.”

“Trust that I will, brother.”

Bucky’s hand gives a spasmodic little shake that Thor doesn’t startle away from. He nods and takes his hands away. He’s safe here, even if he does have an episode. Wanda’s proven that she and her brother can subdue him without even making their presence known to him. Now that they’re getting into their stances, he isn’t even sure he believes he _can_ hurt Thor with his bare hands, which would be a good thing.

Thor lowers his hands, raising his chin like he’d welcome a right hook where he looks most vulnerable. That’s the show he’s selling, so Bucky goes for his gut, knowing that his opponent _would_ overcompensate with his chin if his throat was his advertised weakness. Thor defends against his jabs and kicks, staying mostly on the offensive until they’re really in the thick of it. Bucky gathers pretty quickly that Thor’s strength isn’t an easily avoided obstacle—not like he hadn’t observed as much seeing him with Natasha.

Watching from the sidelines and getting tackled firsthand are two extremely different experiences, it must be said. Bucky thought he might hold out longer than the first round without resorting to dirty tactics, but it turns out that grappling with the god of thunder will change a guy’s mind about what’s acceptable or honorable in a fight.

On their feet, Bucky’s better with hand-to-hand and thinking several moves ahead, but on the floor, Bucky’s an overturned turtle trapped underneath a mass so unyielding it may as well be a brick house.

It’s also, he discovers, too late to try and use Thor’s weakness to his advantage once he’s been knocked flat on his back. He won’t let it get to this point a second time, but now that he’s already compromised, he’s stuck.

“Ah, you…bastard.”

Bucky kicks with his legs, but Thor’s got him pinned. He struggles to free himself, frantic for all of two seconds, until he hears someone laughing.

No, not laughing. Giggling. Wanda. She’s giggling at him.

Bucky strains to look at her over Thor’s head. They’re positioned such that Bucky can only see the tops of their faces if he stretches his neck awkwardly. Like a turtle, again.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” he mumbles, but then he realizes, dropping his head back onto the mat, that he’s okay. It could be that he’s swaddled completely in the unforgettable wind-and-salt smell that tends to cling to Thor or it could be something else entirely, he’s not sure, but he didn’t slip away, didn’t panic. Working to catch his breath, Bucky says, “Huh.”

Thor shifts so he can look Bucky in the eye without releasing him. “Do you yield?”

“Pfft. Yes, Thor, I yield.” Lower, he adds, “You fuckin’ beast.”

With a _wink_ , Thor says, “Oh, yes,” and reels back, helping Bucky up to his feet.

Confusing, but okay, Bucky’s not complaining. Pietro spouts out excitable commentary about their match and gesticulates throughout with both hands, grinning widely and excited. Wanda watches him with an amused, private little smirk on her face. 

Bucky wipes his hand on his shirt and lets Thor take on the brunt of explaining why certain strategies worked while others didn’t. He sneaks off to his phone while Thor’s cheerfully commenting on Bucky’s _commendable strength and utility of offensive maneuvers_. There’s a snap from Steve, a text from Wilson, and a picture message from Weasel waiting for him.

Steve snapped a picture of a city taken from a bird’s eye point of view, captioned, _About to land._

**Wade (5:49 PM)**  
**Hey tin man, think you’ll be busy next sunday?**

Weasel sent him a picture of Мурка sitting on his pillow with a huge moth in between her front paws, also on his pillow. This picture is captioned, _Look how proud she is._

He points his phone’s camera at Thor, Wanda, and Pietro, catching Wanda’s attention first. She starts to shy away, but Bucky waves his hand and says it’s for Steve. Thor notices then what he’s doing and flashes his most winsome smile at the phone, trying to break Bucky’s camera with his stupidly unreal face. Bucky shakes his head at himself and spins around so he can be in the picture, too. Thor herds Wanda and Pietro closer while Bucky’s figuring out the angle.

Thor drapes one arm across Bucky’s shoulders and the other over Wanda’s. Pietro steps in on Bucky’s other side with raised eyebrows. Bucky nods his head for him to come in closer. He gets as far as bumping shoulders with Bucky’s and then directs a smile at the camera.

It’s a great shot. Thor’s hair is slightly frizzy on one side from tossing Bucky around on the mats. Bucky’s face is sweaty and still a little pinked from the exercise. Wanda and Pietro look mostly composed, but they wear the effortless calm of people coming down from a workout. Mjölnir is visible in the background. If she could, Bucky thinks she’d have given Thor bunny ears. Bucky saves the picture and then snapchats Steve.

He captions it: _Rounded up these misfits and threw down. Good times._

“I would like a memento as well. Shall we take another?”

“Yeah, or I can send you this one.”

Bucky sends it to him, but they still end up taking a few more pictures. Some of them Bucky sends to Wilson or Karen or Weasel just for the hell of it, but the majority are for his own collection. He’s starting a kind of scrapbook and someday he’s going to put it all in a physical album.

He’s already got lots of great ones to choose from. The prospective scrapbook could use a few more photos of Matt, probably, and Bucky would like at least one of Claire for reasons, but he’s in no rush.

It’s later and he’s lying in bed on the phone with Wilson asking what’s going down on Sunday when Steve finally opens his snapchat. Bucky toggles the speakerphone feature while Wilson tells him snippets of what he’s planning for them on Sunday.

_► captainrogers  
 a few seconds ago — Screenshot! _

_captainrogers is typing…_

He grins at his phone and rubs his hand over his forehead. Wilson’s not telling him anything substantial about where they’re really going on Sunday, so Bucky doesn’t try to get him to say more.

_captainrogers  
I showed Nat, she said it’s about time _

_captainrogers  
you’re good for them, you know _

Bucky smiles around the heat pricking in his eyes. He types back, _they’re good for me too_

Wilson abruptly changes the subject and asks for the _deets_ regarding Stucky going ‘canon’. He feels a little guilty for messaging Steve while on the phone with Wilson, so he tells him. Bucky would share it with him anyway, really. It’s not a big deal. He still has a lot of fun hearing Wilson’s squawked reactions to every minor detail. Turnabout’s fair play, so he listens with genuine interest when Wilson starts sharing tidbits from his most recent ‘not a date, Sarge, definitely was not a date, nope’ with Foggy.

A good chunk of his friends are half the world away and his floor is completely empty with both Sam and Steve gone on official Avengers business, but he doesn’t feel alone. He can tell Wilson doesn’t feel alone either and that makes it all that much better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tank top Wade bought for Bucky  
> https://cdn-img-1.wanelo.com/p/977/7e1/c8a/5d36ac3f3373227b6f10bdf/x354-q80.jpg
> 
>  
> 
> *Sorry, the chapter didn't post correctly the first time. The full ending got cut off, so I've added it.


	7. Ellie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky meets a very special someone!

Apparently, when Wilson says he’s got big plans for Sunday, what he really means is that he’s coming to get Bucky from the tower at 3AM after a long Saturday night spent not sleeping. Bucky doesn’t mind it so much. Leaping out of bed with half an hour’s notice to get a bag together has him feeling nostalgic for a time he can’t quite place. When he stops to think about it, he wonders if knowing where it came from would sour the pleasant mood he finds himself in. So he stops thinking about it and sinks back into enjoying it.

Fewer nightmares have troubled him this week, but he’s also been getting less sleep overall, so it’s not exactly an ideal situation. Being alone on the floor, while not without its perks, has its discomfiting moments.

One of the benefits is that with Sam and Steve off in Syria until further notice, there’s no one on hand to ask him where he’s going, save J.A.R.V.I.S. Wanda doesn’t wait up in the middle of night to ambush him anymore since the first time and Tony’s also off with the majority of the Avengers in Damascus. Even if he was around, Bucky’s noticed that Tony doesn’t wander up past his labs when his insomnia hits. If anything, he’ll probably get word from Dr. Banner that Bucky up and skipped out on them.

That, or he might trouble J.A.R.V.I.S. for an update later. Bucky left a note on his bedside table in lieu of explaining. Wilson asked him to leave his phone and all other electronic devices behind, so a short note will have to suffice when Tony can’t track him by his phone’s GPS, which is something Natasha’s warned Bucky about.

J.A.R.V.I.S. is still too courteous to utilize his speech functions around Bucky when it’s just the two of them, but he’s taken to relaying simple questions via the flashy, paper-thin monitors girding every doorway. Probably anticipating the group’s concerns, that glib scrolling text winks at Bucky while he’s waiting for the elevator.

_“Getting an early start, Mr. Barnes?”_

Half-asleep and rumpled still from bed-warm blankets, Bucky taps the fingerprint scanner to the elevator with metal knuckles, defiant even in his groggy, disheveled state. He scoffs and shakes his head, mumbling, “Not goin’ for a run, that’s for damn sure.”

Running’s fun when it’s with Sam, but Bucky doesn’t like going alone. He doesn’t like doing a lot of things alone anymore, if he ever did. It’s too easy to get swept away in thoughts of isolation; too unsettling when he can’t find his way back to shore from the unpredictable, thrashing sea of memory. And without Steve or Sam here to sit up with him through the nights when he struggles awake from bad dreams, the loneliness can be palpable at times.

“Crashin’ a bi-weekly somethin’ or other, I dunno,” he adds when J.A.R.V.I.S. doesn’t respond.

The elevator dings, signaling that the doors are going to open. Bucky boards and watches his reflection in the shiny surface. Words briefly replace the floor numbers on display. He blinks at them.

_“Would you care to leave a video message for the others, sir?”_

He scratches his chin and feels with his whole body how gradually the elevator brings him closer to the ground floor. Probably someone ought to know who he’s with, though Bucky can’t say where he’s going since he doesn’t know. He’s disappeared with Wilson a few times before without giving anyone the specifics. Mostly everyone kind of just accepts it.

“Yeah, fine. Record this. I’ll be back soon. Where I’m going, it’s a secret. I mean it, Tony. Don’t go following traffic cameras looking for me. I left my phone. And a note, but I guess that’s moot. This is probably better. So you know I wasn’t coerced.”

He blinks and looks off to the side as a thought occurs to him. A faint image of himself shimmers over the elevator’s side panel, a preview of the message being taken down.

“I guess, technically, I could be acting right now, but…it’s not like I’m the best at that nowadays. Pretty shitty, actually.”

The elevator pings as he reaches the ground floor. Bucky sighs, relieved.

“Okay, that’s it. Cut the feed.”

_“Assuredly, sir.”_

“I told you already, I’m not a _sir_ or a _mister_. Bucky’s fine.”

Bucky gets out of the elevator and walks outside. He runs into Wilson right at the curb, looking no worse for wear and possibly even more rested than usual. His usual ill-fitting attire has been swapped out for sensible cargo pants and a hoodie that’s actually his size. It’s an improvement from the norm, but for a guy who takes such pride in dressing Bucky up like some pretty boy on a fashion magazine, he doesn’t put much effort into his own wardrobe.

And that’s saying something, actually, because Bucky knows for a fact that Wilson hand-stitched his Deadpool suit. That suit, Bucky also knows for a fact, doesn’t leave much to the imagination— _except for the mask,_ he thinks, unhappy at the obvious conclusion.

“Mornin’, Buckle Bear,” Wilson greets him, pulling him in for a quick hug.

Bucky holds on. A wonderful, unique smell clings to Wilson that’s part unditchable gunpowder and part fleeting wisps of fabric softener. Wilson’s never said anything about it, but Bucky often wonders if it’s an attempt to make up for that night at Hudson Yards when Bucky bit him and promptly upchucked. Bucky would ask, but he doesn’t want to embarrass Wilson. He only ever wants to be responsible for positive emotions where his friends are concerned.

Wilson squeezes his shoulder and pats his back. “You good, man?”

“Yeah, just happy to see you.”

“Aww. Wait, I know what this is. Wonder Boy hasn’t come home yet, has he?”

Bucky’s too sleepy to properly roll his eyes, so he settles for taking his arms back and folding them over his chest. Wilson laughs, a softer sound than his typical booming one, and waves his hand for Bucky to walk with him, frazzled scowl or no.

“Where’re we goin’, Wilson?”

“It’s best if I just show you, babycakes.”

Wilson carts him off to a subway station and they catch a train just before it zooms down the darkened tunnel. There aren’t many people out at this hour, but they’re far from the only ones on the move so early. After they board their third train in a row, Bucky starts to realize that Wilson’s on the lookout for possible tails. Bucky starts keeping watch with him, though he’s careful to be subtle about it.

He tends to be mindful of who’s paying attention to him anyway when he’s out in public among civilians, but there’s an unspoken understanding about the need for heightened discretion here and now. Wilson catches him scanning the perimeter for unwanted hangers-on once they get above-ground and smiles. They stop at a kiosk by the subway entrance to buy a cap and a cheap pair of sunglasses for Bucky to hide behind. Bucky wears them for the duration of a bus ride and ditches them somewhere on the outskirts of Norwich.

It’s sort of fun, even if their destination _is_ a closely guarded secret. After hours on the move, it remains a perfect mystery to Bucky, and up until they get to Hamilton via two more buses, Wilson stays quieter than usual, so there’s no asking him what the deal is.

Every good once in a while, he utters casual smalltalk, but Bucky doesn’t respond. Having defaulted into a mission-oriented mindset for the sake of protecting Wilson’s privacy—he assumes that’s why this whole thing has to stay so hush-hush—Bucky refrains from saying anything that will tip a listener off as to where they’re coming from or where they’re going. Since he doesn’t know what secret they’re keeping under lock and key, he leaves it with Wilson to decide what’s safe to say around potential eavesdroppers. They get off a bus at Jamesville before Bucky is finally satisfied that they haven’t been followed. 

Daylight starts to break over the tree line that’s blocking their view of the sky. It’s refreshing, but the long walk isn’t. Wilson sings while they amble along, just snippets and snatches of music. He actually trips over his own feet when Bucky chimes in for a Boswell Sisters song that really comes out of nowhere. And he doesn’t just mutter the words, no, he _sings_ them.

“ _Heaven, I’m in heaven…and my heart beats so that—_ What, you’re gonna leave me hangin’? Okay, fine.” Bucky rolls his eyes and keeps trucking on, sarcastically adding, “Here I was looking forward to the part about _the highest peak of a mountain_. I swear, you really _think_ about these songs before you sing ‘em, don’t you?”

“Whaaat? Of course not, they’re _random_ , unconnected to anything even remotely steeped in _reality_ , mindless _babbling_ ,” Wilson retorts in a whiny, strung-together drawl that also rings of sarcasm. He jogs up so they can walk alongside each other again, brightening at the same time that something about him goes totally serious and calm. “Sometimes I forget that you actually see me.”

The sheer blinding intimacy of that bluntly delivered truth nearly knocks Bucky clean off his feet, but that’s how it is with Wilson all the time— honesty compounded with hope on a constant feedback loop. Occasionally, the two overlap with incoherent musings that are, by Bucky’s estimate, sixty percent internal.

There’s definitely more going on, but that’s the bells and whistles. That’s how Bucky makes sense of it. Of how he and Wilson fit together.

“Well, we’ve come a long way to it,” Bucky mumbles, allowing the conversation to happen if Wilson doesn’t shy away from it either. “You see me, too.”

They’re on some deserted stretch of backroads that sprawl and sprawl, ungoverned. Trees bracket them in on both sides and there’s not a soul for miles. Wilson’s always bared the most vulnerable parts of himself to make Bucky feel safe, so Bucky can talk about their friendship if Wilson wants to talk about it. He’s not afraid. He doesn’t suppose he would be anyway, regardless of who could see them. Wilson doesn’t hide—definitionally _can’t_ hide the hell he’s lived through—and Bucky’s past the point of leaving him in the light alone anymore.

“Yeah, but lots of people see you now,” Wilson says, waving Bucky off. “They make an effort for you. Not that I’m complaining. It warms my little heart to see ’em fluttering around you.”

Bucky kicks at a rock and watches it go skittering off the side of the road. “You deserve better than just me.”

“Uhhhh, no, I don’t deserve any better or worse than what I’ve got right now. Don’t beat yourself up, tin man. And look, uh, since we’re on the subject of who all I’ve got in my corner, there’s something I gotta tell you. I was gonna wait until we got to the house, but Preston should be driving by any minute now and I’ve been busting at the seams trying to keep a lid on it until we got clear of, well, other people, civilization, cell service. The works.”

Bucky pats his pockets down, reminding himself and Wilson that he didn’t bring his phone along anyway. Growing nervous within the span of a few seconds, Wilson starts talking.

“We’re goin’ to Syracuse. I wanted you to meet someone—or well, I wanted to _tell_ you about her since she’s so important to me, but I can’t really do that where people could find out who she is, you know? It’s a super secret kinda deal, and if _anyone_ got wind of where she was, she could get hurt because of me and I can’t—” Wilson’s breath hitches and Bucky would miss it if he weren’t watching Wilson’s face so closely. “I can’t have that. Don’t tell anyone. Promise me you won’t tell, _please_.”

“Hey, I won’t.” Bucky almost shows his palms to placate him, but he hates when people do that to him. He keeps his hands firmly at his sides. “You got my word.”

Stone-faced and visibly rattled by the weight of this oath, he says, “Pinky swear.”

Bucky looks at the proffered finger with a confused frown. Wilson nods at Bucky’s hand and wiggles his pinky for emphasis.

“Oh. Sure.” They lock pinky fingers and hold. “Pinky swear.”

“It’s totally a thing. I didn’t invent it,” Wilson tells him, a little imploringly.

Laughing, Bucky takes his hand back.

“I believe you. Hey, wait, you’re not secretly married, are you? Wilson, Foggy’s my friend and I vouched for you. You can’t make him the Other Woman—or, the Other…Man. Mistress?”

“It’s not like that, Buckles.” Wilson waves his hand like he’s not concerned in the least with Bucky’s assumption. His lips twitch into a smile at Bucky’s floundering attempts to find the right word, yet it’s with palpable sadness in his voice that he murmurs, “It’s definitely not like that.”

Up the road, a car rumbles toward them. Bucky curls his hands into wary fists and softens at Wilson’s elbow at his ribs. He hangs back while Wilson runs ahead and waves his arms, crossing pretty obviously in front of Bucky as an unsolicited human shield. An arm appears from the opened driver’s side window, moving in a circular motion as if to swing a lasso. Bucky surmises that it’s a signal they agreed on because Wilson motions for Bucky to go with him.

The car drives a bit farther up the road. It’s a massive, ancient beast of an automobile. Behind the wheel, a woman with dark skin and hair looks up at Wilson and then at Bucky as they approach. She unlocks the doors, letting Bucky slide into the backseat before Wilson can offer him the front.

“You must be Barnes,” the woman says, crisply authoritative and steadfast. She twists to offer him her hand. “Emily Preston.”

“Good morning, ma’am,” he replies, easily obedient. “Nice to meet you.”

Preston’s got a good firm grip and a no-nonsense kind of face that demands honesty. Bucky decides right away that he’s going to like her.

“See,” Wilson says, clambering into the passenger’s seat. “I’ve got respectable friends.”

“Your friends aren’t who I worry about half the time.”

Bucky watches them from his safe spot in the backseat and fiddles with the ends of his jacket after he’s done up his seatbelt.

“Can I know where we’re going now?”

“You didn’t tell him,” Preston observes, supremely unimpressed.

“I was about to and then you drove up,” he counters, defensive. He brings his feet up beneath himself on the seat when Preston shoos them off the dashboard. Turning to face Bucky where he’s sitting in the back, Wilson says, “So I have a daughter.”

The gears in Bucky’s brain grind to a halt. “You what?”

“Have a daughter—a tiny human that I helped to make; a small being made up of half my genetic material; a girl child…”

“Wilson, Jesus Christ, I get it. You have a daughter.” Bucky frowns and sits up. “You have a daughter!”

“Her name’s Ellie,” Wilson adds, beaming and even getting a little misty-eyed. “She’s eight, and pretty much the greatest.”

“You have an eight year-old daughter. Named Ellie.”

Bucky spends the rest of the forty-five minute to Syracuse drive grilling Wilson and Preston alike about everything there is to know about this kid. What sports she likes, if she’s ahead of the other kids her age at school, whether she knows about Deadpool. She likes basketball and she’s smart without being a smartass and she loves knowing that her dad kicks butt for a living even though Hawkeye is actually her favorite, and somehow, Bucky feels a little bit like he knows her just from hearing that last bit.

“But don’t worry, tin man, she likes you better.”

“What?”

“Well, Spidey’s her real fave, but I talk about you all the time, so I think you’re starting to steal the title.” Wilson makes a show of wiping at his eyes. “All my friends are cooler than me.”

“You talk about me.”

“He never shuts _up_ about you,” Preston says, not taking her eyes off the road. “I thought it’d be a relief to hear about someone other than Spiderman for once, but it all sounds the same after a while. Hero worship, undying declarations of love, monologues spoken to the dog when he thinks everyone’s gone to bed…”

“Way to make it sound super embarrassing, Preston, jeez,” Wilson interrupts, half-shouting it out the open window.

“…You guys have a dog?”

Preston sighs and looks at Wilson like he just spit in her coffee.

“You’ve heard about him before! Remember when you met Weas and he and I were talkin’ about Deuce?”

“Vaguely.”

“Turns out, Weasel’s cat does _not_ like him. Neither does Al, really, so I ended up keeping him for about a week. Tried to shove him off on Mr. Matt Murdock, esquire, buuuut he didn’t want him either. It’s a whole story; I’ll have to tell you about it sometime. Anyhoo, I brought him up here for the day a few weeks back and Ellie _loved_ him. Just couldn’t get enough of him slobberin’ all over her and running after the ball when she threw it for him. So. Cute, tin man. So cute.”

Bucky watches Preston shake her head and says, “Sounds like.”

“I maintain that we’re not keeping him,” Preston insists, pushing a bit harder on the gas pedal.

“Aw, come on, Pres. Ellie loves that mutt. You’re a hardass, but not about this.” Wilson shrugs expansively. “Besides, I didn’t think it was possible to find anybody who’d get him to come to heel as fast as you two have.”

“Shane and the boys are warming up to him,” she admits, grudgingly. Adopting a more neutral tone, she adds, “They just like to see Ellie happy.”

“She’s not?” Bucky asks, though maybe it’s not his place.

Preston glances at Bucky in the rear view mirror and turns a harsher stare at Wilson. “She misses her dad. That mangy dog makes her feel like you’re around more than you are.”

“Where’s…”

Bucky stops himself from finishing that sentence, but Preston and Wilson both look back at him. He shrinks a little bit and starts to shake his head, apologetic about his curiosity.

Wilson answers him anyway, saying, “She died. Ellie’s mom, she’s dead.”

“Oh.”

Every rock and dip in the road jostles them in this old, beat-up car. Bucky’s grateful for the whipping wind and the stirring of gravel beneath tires. It keeps the uncomfortable silence from becoming oppressive. Guilt churns low in his belly. He had no right to ask such a personal question.

After a while, the trees thin out and the car emerges onto a city road. The ride goes smoother for the well-tended asphalt that gives way beneath them. Bucky takes in the surroundings as Preston navigates them along frontage roads adjacent to bustling highways. His stomach growls at the few restaurants they pass up and Preston chuckles but doesn’t remark on it.

Eventually, they get into a residential part of town all lined in grass and trees. Every backyard is huge and gated, and every front yard has a whimsical mailbox up the driveway. Preston pulls the car into one of them and kills the engine. Bucky’s heart gives a desperate flutter of anxiety.

 _Shit,_ he thinks, frantic. _I’m not ready for this. I didn’t even think about that and now we’re here. Shit, shit, **shit**. _

“Home, sweet home,” Preston announces with a pointed glance at Wilson.

The two of them get out of the car and Wilson reaches for the handle on Bucky’s door to let him out, and Bucky freezes. His thoughts snap to an abrupt halt in blank panic. Wilson hesitates, bends at the waist to perch his elbows on the line of Bucky’s open window, and cracks a smile.

“Ellie already loves you, Buckle Bean. You got a bad case of the jimjams over nothing.”

“She…she knows? She knows about _me?_ ”

“Yeah, tin man, she knows. I mean, I don’t know why you say it like _that_. She thinks you’re the bee’s knees, the cat’s meow, the whole shebang.”

Bucky swallows down his whole list of reasons this outing is a Bad Idea. Preston’s waiting at the bottom of the porch steps, watching them. She signed off on Wilson bringing Bucky here. She’s spent weeks, if not more than that, hearing Wilson say every- and anything about him. And Bucky’s got a feeling that even if Preston didn’t keep up with his trial when it happened, she would’ve gotten caught up as soon as Wilson mentioned bringing him home to meet Ellie.

Preston wouldn’t have allowed him here to her home if she thought he’d be a danger to her family. Wilson wouldn’t have thought to bring him if he thought Ellie could be in danger.

“Hey, if you wanna call it off, we can head back right now. She’ll wanna know why we didn’t stick around, but she’ll understand. Smart _and_ sweet, that daughter o’ mine. But any kid nice enough to keep me for a dad would have to be forgiving, right?”

Wilson flashes Bucky a grin that gives him more courage than Wilson could probably ever know. Bucky’s not about to disappoint a child—not this one, not _Wilson’s_ kid.

“No, I’m ready. I just…I’m ready. Open the door.”

Wilson doesn’t patronize him by asking if he’s sure. He just tugs on the handle and pulls the door open, stepping back to let Bucky get out. Before he’s properly on his feet, Bucky hears the springs on the screen door whine and bang shut. Hears the pitter-patter of small feet running down the steps.

“Daddy!”

“Ellie Belly!”

Bucky goes still again half-hidden behind the car door, his flesh fingers clamped tight around metal. He watches Ellie run right into Wilson’s arms, watches Wilson sweep her up into a hug and spin her around, watches her shriek with laughter. Preston’s moved to the porch proper where she can look out at them from a cautious distance. In spite of her biting comments earlier, she still looks happy seeing father and daughter reunited.

And Bucky gets that, he does. She hasn’t even looked at him yet, but Bucky would move heaven and earth to keep that little girl smiling.

When she does look at him, before Wilson’s even set her down, his heart gives another weak stutter in his chest. He tries to look unimposing, calm, _something_ , but she’s a tiny hurricane of a human being and he doesn’t stand a chance. Especially not when Wilson gently places her back on the ground and she marches over to him, all brass and spark and heavy-handed but genuine _compassion_.

Just like her dad.

“I’m Ellie,” she says, holding out her hand like a grown-up.

Bucky can’t speak. He reaches meekly for her hand and clasps it in his like he would a tiny glass figurine. 

“I know you. You’re the tin man. Can I see your arm?”

“Ellie,” Preston chides from her protective perch at the door.

“Sorry!” Ellie calls out, turning to look at Preston. Slyly, for a child, she turns back to Bucky and asks in a stage whisper, “But you’ll show me later, right? My daddy says it makes noises.”

“That was the old one,” Wilson tells her, wincing at Bucky’s astonished glance. “This one’s a huge improvement on the original design, but she thought the whirring shoulder cannon was so cool.” At Ellie again, he adds, “Because it _was_.”

“Did it shoot fire?” Ellie asks, looking between them, adorably amazed before even hearing the answer.

“That’s Iron Man, Ellie,” Wilson corrects her, sounding like a schoolteacher patiently explaining mathematics to a student.

“I _know_. But Iron Man wears a suit. You don’t wear a suit.”

“Not for a long time,” Bucky says, finally finding his voice. “My friend Steve wears a suit.”

“Isn’t he your boyfriend? Daddy says he’s your boyfriend. Or are you married?”

Bucky doesn’t blush, but it’s honest-to-God a near thing. Preston barks a laugh and slips into the house, making up her mind, maybe, that they really are going to be just fine. 

“Steve is…yes.” He tries—and fails—to keep from stammering. “He is that. To me.”

Wilson makes a high-pitched giggly noise like he’s about to give himself a stroke from holding in his laughter. Bucky glares at him.

“Your daddy has a boyfriend.”

“I know,” Ellie sighs. “He really loves Spiderman.”

Bucky wants to be offended for Foggy, but it’s actually too hilarious that Ellie believes her dad is dating—not Peter Parker, no, but Spiderman. He has to make himself calm down before he even realizes that he’d been laughing.

Yeah, he and this kid are going to get along just fine. They really, really are.

Wilson sees it, too, as the day progresses. Bucky can tell he’s just as charmed by Bucky’s reaction as Bucky is charmed by Ellie. Preston mostly looks amused that neither of them can keep it together.

They sit down to a late breakfast just the four of them. Preston’s husband, Shane, and their two sons apparently took the day to go boating up at Lake George. She says the boys wanted to meet Bucky, too, but they all agreed that it would be better for now to let them have this time alone with Ellie. After all, this day is, first and foremost, about Wilson getting to see his daughter and vice versa.

Bucky meets Deuce about ten minutes to lunchtime. Wilson’s inside with Ellie plating up some burgers because that’s a thing they like to do together and Preston’s outside with Bucky to show him to Deuce. He’s not quite the ‘demon dog’ that Bucky was expecting, but he gets why people would be intimidated. 

In lieu of sniffing him first, the dog immediately jumps up and affixes his paws to Bucky’s shoulders where he then inspect Bucky’s face, his hair, the works. Deuce drools everywhere, but he doesn’t growl or snap at Bucky. In fact, he hardly seems wary of him at all. Preston clicks her tongue and the dog goes back down on all fours again to snuffle meekly at Bucky’s boots as if that’s what he was doing the whole time. Bucky tries to imagine Weasel having the same kind of tight control over this dog and can’t. He can’t imagine anyone—maybe not even Matt—as the alpha in the equation.

Ellie comes jogging out with mustard and ketchup for the burgers but gets sidetracked from her task by Deuce’s whining. She tosses the condiments on the outdoor wicker table and sits down on the deck with him to ruffle Deuce’s ears. The look of utter contentment on that dog’s face makes Bucky smile.

Wilson makes great burgers, which comes as no surprise to Bucky because it falls within the spectrum of hobbies he expects Wilson to have. Also, he’s sampled Wilson’s cooking before and has always enjoyed the hell out of it. A classic dish like burgers with fries, Bucky can’t imagine Wilson wouldn’t knock it out of the park. Ellie says as much out loud once they dig in. She takes the words right out of Bucky’s mouth.

The thing about Ellie is that she’s honest. She shares Wilson’s propensity for telling the most barefaced version of the truth whenever the impulse arises, and if Bucky didn’t know her father so well, he’d write it off as a quirk of childhood. But that’s just it, really. He can’t write off any of the uncanny similarities to Wilson that he sees in Ellie.

For starters, she’s hilarious. Bucky never has to force a smile or nod agreeably at the things she says. She’s just a genuinely funny kid. Predisposed as he is to liking her because of who her dad is to him, Bucky can’t help but like her _because_ he sees so much of his friend in her. Ellie is undeniably, alarmingly _Wade’s_ daughter.

Though the full force of Wilson’s deadpan snark might not manifest until she hits her teen years, if that, she has his sense of humor. She has his subtle appreciation for uncommonly beautiful things and his mannerisms and his way of being unrepentantly blunt about everything. Ellie even…

 _Oh,_ Bucky thinks, reverent at the realization that shocks his brain as he’s watching her carefully measure spoonfuls of grainy powder for a tall glass of milk. Her mouth squashes into a tense, funny line while she concentrates hard on making Bucky the Perfect Chocolate Milk. The expression brings out twin dimples in both of her cheeks, and Bucky’s marveling at her and everything that she represents when he makes up his mind.

She looks just like her dad.

He doesn’t think he can tell Wilson that, but he wants to. Ellie makes another glass of chocolate milk for herself, less careful with it than she had been with Bucky’s, which just melts his heart. She drops some of the chocolate powder on the rim of her glass and pushes it down into the milk with her bendy straw. Bucky sits with her and Preston at the table to indulge in the overly sweet concoction she made for him while Wilson shuffles around in the kitchen to get a start on dinner. He whistles faintly in between pulling open drawers and searching out utensils. Ellie idly blows bubbles in her chocolate milk.

Bucky’s seen Wilson do that, too. Just like her dad, Ellie holds the straw in her fist like a dart shooter. 

“I don’t like the picture they use for you at the Smithsonian,” she says, looking so oddly serious that he sits up a little in his seat.

“Oh, no?”

“You look like somebody gave you pie and said it was apple, but then when you took a bite, it was actually rotten eggs.”

Having made the mistake of going back for another drink when she started to explain, Bucky has the unfortunate experience of shooting milk out his nose and all over his hand. Preston moves to get him a towel straight away. Wilson drops the apron he was attempting to tie around his neck and brays like a goddamn horse.

Bucky covers his face with a dish towel and coughs to get the gritty sweet taste unstuck from his throat. Wilson gasps daintily, trying to catch his breath.

Ellie, so innocent even though he can’t see her face, says, “Was that mean?”

“No, Ellie,” Preston answers in Bucky’s place while he harrumphs into the towel to hide his red face. There’s a bit of a laugh in Preston’s voice. “It’s like when Terry ripped his pants playing with Deuce and Jeff spat lemonade all over Shane. Remember?”

“Ohhh.” Ellie laughs, and even that sounds like a miniature, if tonally shifted, echo of her dad’s laugh. “That was funny.”

Bucky recovers and pats his face down with the towel. He rubs at his eyes before standing to get some paper towels for the mess he made. Once he sits back down again, he notices Ellie peeking at his metal arm.

“You couldn’t put a camcorder in my hand _five seconds_ sooner?” Wilson mutters at the cabinet beside the oven. “Seriously, that would’ve gone viral in _minutes_.” Horrified, he adds, “No one will ever believe me.”

“Daddy has invisible friends,” Ellie tells Bucky, blocking the side of her mouth with one hand like it’s some big secret. Maybe she thinks it is. “He can’t tell us everything, so he has to tell them.”

Bucky stares at her and then at Wilson. He notices Preston watching him from the corner of his eye.

“Your dad…tries really hard,” he tells her. 

“Yeah. He tries, and then he gets good.”

“That’s right.”

“Like with food,” she says matter-of-factly. “He used to be really bad at making food. Now he’s really good.”

“Such high praise!” Wilson gushes, deftly setting something on the stove aflame.

“Wilson, please don’t burn my house down.”

“Preston, I would never. I have a _marvelous_ track record in this kitchen. Frankly, I’m downright shocked at your lack of faith. Wounded, even. You wound me, Preston. Preston, I’m wounded.”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

Turns out, the stuff Wilson was setting on fire was stir-fry with mushrooms, peppers, carrots, and broccoli. There’s strips of chicken cooked in, too, and Bucky’s mouth waters just smelling it. Deuce has the same reaction. He rolls around under the table out back begging for scraps. Preston scolds him after a while and he takes to lounging about the spacious backyard instead.

Bucky wonders if maybe Deuce got such a bad reputation before because he didn’t have all the room he needed to roam, to stretch his legs. It must help a lot that he’s accepted Preston as the boss where he clearly hasn’t been able to with anyone else.

Because he’s got to be on his best behavior, Wilson washes the dishes once they finish up. Ellie drags Bucky with her to help make dessert—actually physically grabs him by his wrist and carts him off like she’s not worried in the slightest that he’ll resist. And he doesn’t. It never even occurs to him to lock up, dig his heels in, or otherwise. He just hunches over slightly to accommodate for how much shorter than him she is and follows along.

Ellie gets what they need and washes her hands. Bucky does, too, suspiciously cataloguing the butter, the unopened package of marshmallows, and the blue box of cereal. She sees his apprehension and tells him step by step how all the pieces will come together to create a sugary, gooey treat. Bucky doesn’t doubt it’ll be sticky or sweet, thanks to the marshmallows, but he’s skeptical about the treat part. It just looks like it’ll be a huge mess. He goes along with it anyway. It’s intriguing measuring out all the portions for Ellie when she lists off how much of everything they need by heart. She must make these rice cake things with Preston’s sons to know the recipe so well. Once the crunchy, warm batter is pressed into the pan, Ellie tells him all that’s left to do it wait.

She sits up on the granite counter tops and swings her feet. He’s only just begun to settle into their quiet when she says, “My daddy said you were scared to come here. Were you?”

Bucky almost can’t handle how much she really just looks like her dad. After keeping it to himself for the better part of an afternoon, he feels like he’s going to burst open at any minute and shout it at the top of his lungs for all to hear. Ellie studies him, deep brown eyes wide with curiosity.

It’s impossible to know what parts of her face come from her mother, but he can pick out the features that are markedly not from Wilson. Her proud chin is made up of different angles than Wilson’s and her nose bears an altogether unfamiliar shape and her cheekbones are higher than Wilson’s, more pronounced, even when she’s not smiling. He gets a little lost mixing and matching the aspects that can be traced back to Wilson. That’s probably weird, but it’s not like he has many other ways of knowing what Wilson looked like before Weapon X.

Ellie blinks and frowns at Bucky, reminding him that she asked him a question. Before he can remember what it was or come up with a suitable answer—and Jesus, he’s actually ashamed—she shrugs with one shoulder and tells him, “It’s okay. Daddy forgets to talk out loud sometimes, too.”

Bucky knew before they even met that he would do the impossible to make her happy, but now he knows that he would kill to protect her, to keep her safe. He would probably even die for her, and God, that’s such a dramatic thing to even think in the privacy of his own thoughts, but it’s true. She’s innocent and good and kind, and even if she wasn’t Wilson’s kin, Wilson’s flesh and blood, she would still be a child and he would still feel the need to shelter her from harm, from cruelty, from pain.

He can’t shelter her, but he understands the impulse. Even if he can never have a child of his own because of what Hydra did to him, they couldn’t remove this heuristic from his brain; couldn’t erase this warm affection from his heart.

Bucky didn’t know before he met Ellie. After a whole day of knowing her, he’d just about convinced himself that she was special simply because she is. He had no opportunity to learn until now that he likes kids. He has a paternal instinct, and God save him, but even if he’ll never be a father in the biological sense of the word, the thought of raising a kid terrifies him. In a flash, he has a whole new perspective on Clint. And an alteration on the respect he’s had for Wilson.

“I was scared to come here,” Bucky admits, watching the cereal congeal in marshmallow glue. “I was scared you wouldn’t like me.”

“But you’re awesome,” Ellie counters, a little furrow digging up between her dark eyebrows. “Daddy has so many stories about all the cool stuff you did. And you’re in a museum and you’re super old just like Captain America and someday you’ll be an avenger with him and Hawkeye and Black Widow. And everybody’ll see how brave you are, not just my daddy and your boyfriend.”

Bucky snorts, rapidly moving from bewildered to overwhelmed to entertained in the span of a few seconds. He looks at Ellie, at her eyes that are the same color as Wilson’s with the exact same shine in them. She’s so sincere, so guileless, he wants to tell her nothing short of the whole truth.

“I was afraid because of my past.”

“When the bad guys made you hurt people?”

He takes a steadying breath and looks away. Says, “Yeah, when I hurt people.”

Ellie takes a few seconds to really turn that admission over in her mind. She’s still pursing her lips into a frown that’s more confused than upset.

“You aren’t mean, though.”

“I don’t want to be, no.”

“You’re not mean to me.”

“No,” he says. “Never to you.”

Ellie smiles, liking that answer. Bucky smiles, too, helpless to resist.

“I don’t think you’re scary,” she informs him, lifting her chin as she does, probably understanding that it sets her apart from a lot of other people. “You’re like Deuce.”

“You sayin’ I stink?” Bucky quips, smirking. “That I drool?”

“Everybody thinks he’s a bad dog, but it’s not his fault what everybody thinks,” Ellie replies instead, meaning one thing, maybe, but potentially meaning a million things. “He has a home now and I love him and he protects me when I sleep at night. He’s not a bad dog. Even if he is to everyone else, he’s not to me.”

Bucky’s smirk fades and his eyes sting. 

“You’re not bad.” She says it like it’s yet another ingredient for him to throw into a bowl. “You’re daddy’s best friend, so you can’t be bad.”

Ellie turns away then to examine the cereal cake. She asks Bucky if he wants to carve the slices out of it, but he doesn’t trust his hands not to shake badly right about now, so he politely declines that honor. She calls her dad in to do it and Bucky wonders how he could have had this whole conversation with Ellie and not even notice when Wilson left the room. He was doing the dishes and at some point, slipped out unobserved without tripping Bucky’s senses in the slightest.

Wilson doesn’t tease him about it. He just cuts huge rectangular chunks out of the marshmallow and rice casserole. Preston comes out to bid them goodnight and to tell Ellie not to stay up too late. They’re going up to Lake George in the morning to meet up with Shane, Terry, and Jeff, so Preston wants to be well-rested for the drive.

“It was nice to meet you, Barnes, really.”

She shakes his hand and he stands to his feet. 

“Likewise. Goodnight, ma’am, and thank you for your hospitality.”

“Night, Preston,” Wilson sings with a wave of his hand.

“G’night, Auntie Emily.”

Ellie stays up for another hour with them like a real trooper. Bucky rolls up his sleeve and shows her his arm, and while she’s disappointed that it doesn’t hum like his previous prosthetic, she still thinks it’s really something special. She drags her feet when Wilson suggests that it’s bedtime but doesn’t put up much of a fight. Wilson goes inside with her and comes back five minutes later looking peaceful and happy.

“Did I tell you or what, tin man? She’s the best.”

Bucky smiles, feeling some of that peaceful happiness blooming on his own face. “That’s a great kid you got there, Wilson.”

They sit in the moonlight on Preston’s back porch in her lovely wicker chairs that match the lovely wicker-and-glass table. Deuce does his hyper-vigilant patrol of the yard’s perimeter about six times before trundling up the steps to settle down. He chooses the spot in between Bucky’s chair that’s farthest from the door and the short set of stairs that leads down to the grass. Bucky quickly scans the yard and Deuce’s position in relation to him and Wilson and tilts his head back, understanding.

“Wilson, was Deuce part of a K-9 unit?”

“Hmm? Oh, I don’t know. Weas might’ve mentioned something like that when he got him, yeah. Why?”

“I bet that’s why you had so many problems getting him situated. Poor guy.”

“An animal lover who’s great with kids. You know, sarge, every time I learn that you’re an even bigger softie than I already thought, my skin feels a little less like it’s on fire.”

“Glad I could be of service.”

Wilson munches the last of the rice bar things. Bucky has to admit, they were pretty good. 

“So eight years, huh, Wilson? What were you even like back then?”

“Ah, you know, breakin’ hearts, takin’ names. Mostly _my_ heart, but hey. I was a hot mess. Didn’t really matter to anybody that I change, so I didn’t. And when I did, it felt like it came too late, so…” Wilson shakes his head, trailing off. “Weird, though, isn’t it? Ellie. She’s nothing like me.”

Bucky physically turns to face his whole body toward Wilson, going stone-faced as he conjures up the great and innumerable list he’s been compiling all day. Wilson glances over at him and does a double take at the look Bucky knows damn well is on his face.

“What?”

“Are you fucking with me right now?”

“No? I—”

“Ellie looks and acts exactly like you.”

“Don’t do that,” Wilson grits out, voice going wooden with a surplus of emotion that doesn’t surprise Bucky at all. “Don’t.”

“You think I’d say something like that just to blow smoke up your ass? To be nice? _Wade_ , look at me. Ellie is funny and smart, and I know what you think I’m saying right now, but that’s not it, okay? She’s not ugly. _You’re_ not ugly. You aren’t. Honestly, look at your bone structure and your smile and your physique. You’re a handsome guy, and that shouldn’t surprise you because you made a gorgeous kid.”

Wilson stares hard and unblinking at Bucky like he doesn’t believe him, but Bucky waits him out. He stares back, jaw clenched tight for his resolve, until Wilson’s expressions shutters, quivers, and shatters.

“I didn’t…back when Carm—Ellie’s mom, I…” Wilson shakes his head with a tight grimace stretching his lips almost into a frown. “We didn’t think Ellie could be mine. She was too…even as a baby, you know, just, so…”

Bucky bites his cheek at the words Wilson can’t make himself say out loud. _She was too beautiful._

“Ellie loves you,” Bucky says after a while, when he can’t stand for Wilson’s shame to consume his friend any longer. “She’s wonderful and she loves you and she made me shoot milk out of my nose by saying I looked like I ate rotten eggs in my Smithsonian photo.”

Wilson snorts in spite of his sorrow, in spite of his regrets. Bucky takes that response and stretches it.

“Do you know that she can make those rice goo things without looking at a recipe? I think that’s incredible.”

“Rice goo things,” Wilson repeats, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Snap, crackle, pop is right. I don’t think he knows. But we like him anyway.”

Bucky folds his hands over his stomach, content, imagining Copperplate and Curlicue feeling a kindred sort of tranquility. They’ve been predominantly silent all day, so maybe they like getting to see Ellie, too. Bucky can’t imagine anyone not being happy to see Ellie. She’s a breath of fresh air. Steve and the others would undoubtedly love her just like Bucky does. Someday, when being Wilson’s daughter doesn’t put her life in jeopardy anymore, maybe she could meet them, the Avengers.

It doesn’t feel like an unattainable thing to want. Even if the point’s been driven home for Bucky tonight that there are some things he’ll never have and never do, he’s also felt proof of the opposite right in his heart. He felt it when Ellie said he couldn’t be bad, when she said he didn’t frighten her.

Wilson cleans up the last of the mess they’ve left in their wake and starts them off toward the door. The plan was never to stay the night and Bucky’s glad for that as it means he won’t be at risk for nightmares while in Ellie or Preston’s company, but he’s still sad to be leaving. Deuce doesn’t much like the idea either since he starts running around the house, nails scraping on all the nice hardwood as he chases around phantom intruders.

He doesn’t bark, thankfully, but he might as well. A door opens in the hallway and the two of them freeze at the door, Wilson immediately flipping on the light and calling out, “It’s us, Preston, don’t shoot.”

But rather than a frustrated, sleep-deprived Preston, Ellie rounds the corner. She’s got on mismatched pajamas, purple on the bottom and yellow on the top. Bucky can see when she comes closer that the long purple sleep pants are dappled with tiny green hulks, dispersed in a crisscrossed pattern so that they almost look like they’re dancing, hopping from one foot to the other. The yellow shirt is more easily deciphered: the red Iron Man mask placed right in the center over her heart.

Bucky finds it endlessly cute at the same time that he mourns his inability to tell either Tony or Bruce that Wilson’s daughter combines their merchandise. Ellie rubs at her eyes and coos at Deuce for him to calm down. It works, actually, and he lays down at her feet, jittery still with nervous energy but attentive to her commands.

Wilson’s already started toward her, kneeling for one more hug goodbye. It goes on and on and on, and Bucky knows that it’s because it has to last them two weeks until the next one. He gets all tearful just thinking about it, about how unfair it is that Ellie should have to miss her dad when he wants to be around more than he is. Ellie lets go of her dad and walks up to Bucky for a hug from him that she didn’t get before, and he briefly forgets how to breathe.

He holds on tight and loses the uphill battle with the tears burning at his eyes. His heart splits right open when she tells him it’s all right; that she cries, too, when she feels a lot of something—even if it’s not from hurting or from being sad. 

Bucky’s tells Ellie goodnight and to have fun at Lake George tomorrow, and no one mentions how his voice cracks. For the first mile and a half that he walks with Wilson in the dark on the long trek back to Manhattan, he can’t keep himself from quietly weeping and stumbling over things that aren’t there. Wilson extends an arm behind Bucky’s back to support him, to console him.

And Bucky doesn’t realize, like he often doesn’t, that he’s been talking aloud until he hears Wilson murmuring to him, “It’s okay, Bucky. Steve might not make ‘em as pretty as yours would’ve been, but I bet they’d still be cute enough.”

He feels like falling down and not getting up, but something about Wilson admitting that Bucky’s _prettier_ than Steve of all people just makes Bucky smile, then chuckle, then laugh, then cackle in the wooded darkness with the open sky hanging clear above them. Wilson doesn’t let go of him and Bucky doesn’t stop crying, but he doesn’t stop smiling either. 

It feels okay that way, like he’s going to be all right no matter what he’s lost. He still believes in possibility, and Wilson has a valid point about Steve’s equipment probably still being fully functional, unlike Bucky’s. He doesn’t want to think about the mechanics of any of that right now. It’s not something he should think about when his heart’s all full to spilling over and Steve is so far away, probably thinking of everything _but_ having kids, and Bucky—Bucky’s not ready; just categorically isn’t ready.

“Good job on the awesome kid, Wilson.”

Sounding touched, Wilson says, “Thanks, Buckles.”

“I’m glad you let me meet her.”

“Yeah, me, too, tin man. Me, too.”

They walk bathed in nightfall, and by the time Bucky’s tears have dried, they’re nearing a bus station. Bucky thinks he should be upset about missing so much sleep over this trip, but it’s been worth it. And if it means he might sleep like a rock when he gets back to his bed at Avengers Tower, then so be it.

“Who knows, sarge, Wonder Boy might even be back when you wake up!” Wilson says brightly with a sly glance at the lamppost illuminating the lonely bus stop.

Bucky stares at it with a perplexed scowl, looks between it and Wilson, and rolls his eyes against the migraine starting to build up in his brain. He shakes his head and decides _fuck it_ before turning to face the lamppost. Wilson sucks in a scandalized little gasp as Bucky points right at it.

“First of all, screw you for mangling the Bucky Bear. He didn’t do anything to you, you animal.”

“Yeah, tell her,” Wilson crows, not bothering to be quiet since there’s no one around.

“And second of all,” Bucky says, losing steam, wilting. “Well, I’m mad about a lot of it, but there were a lot of really good moments, so…anyway, thanks for this guy. And for Ellie. She thinks Steve is my husband and that’s really pretty great.”

Wilson chortles a little at the last bit and sits down on the bench. Bucky sits next to him and shakes his head.

“Yeah. I still don’t get what the whole thing’s about. Figured I’d try.”

“Eh, the fourth wall,” Wilson says, yawning. “Smashing it to pieces ain’t for everyone.”

“I guess not.”

But still, Bucky can appreciate the idea of it. He can’t grasp it, exactly. He doesn’t think he was built to understand it. Wilson is, though, and for Bucky, that makes it real enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ellie’s digs  
> http://www.homes.com/property/201-melrose-ave-syracuse-ny-13219/id-400020713654/
> 
> I also want to just remind everybody that my face claim for Wade in this story is Jose Pablo Cantillo (not that I don’t absolutely adore RyRey as the merc with the mouth because I do, but I also really love JPC okay don’t u judge me)  
> http://img02.deviantart.net/2225/i/2014/049/1/a/jose_pablo_cantillo_by_lucferkel-d771knl.jpg
> 
>  
> 
> *To everyone who picked at me to get this thing written, I love you. :')  
> **Also it's unbeta'd, as per usual. If there are mistakes, I'll get to them in the morning. Meanwhile, enjoy this mess of feels and cry with me.


	8. Wade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With half the Avengers out of the Tower for a while, Bucky finds ways to stay busy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some heavy drinking in this chapter. Sorry I forgot to warn for this when I posted.

An obvious benefit to Matt’s coming clean about his side gig as Daredevil is that he doesn’t have to hide his more surprising abilities from his friends anymore. For Bucky, the best perk to that particular lifestyle change is that Matt’s started teaching Karen and Foggy basic self-defense. It’s only natural that Bucky pounces on the opportunity to lend his skills for the cause.

He’s cautious about it—and he still doesn’t quite trust the weapon that is his body to touch them outside of small, passing grazes of sensation here and there, so he sticks to instruction only. Matt hovers on the edge of the ring with him and gives Foggy some pointers while Bucky calls out the same for Karen.

It’s nice. It’s easy. They know he gets bored at Avengers Tower when over half the team is gone, so they make time at the end of their workdays to indulge him. 

But it also turns out to just be good for them. They come in looking stiff and worried; they leave happily exhausted. Bucky’s the same. He starts out stressed, but by the end of their workout, he’s loosened up, calm. Matt always jokes about this time being the one, the night he finally collects on their long-promised boxing match. Bucky brushes him off, secretly pleased that Matt teases him about it; that he still wants what he offered so long ago before they grew to be friends.

Wilson comes along on their adventures to the gym every now and again. He plays up how much he likes seeing Foggy in sweatpants and with his neat hair all undone, but Bucky knows Wilson’s covering up for the fact that he really enjoys their company, plain and simple. It must be said, though. There’s an undeniable appeal to seeing Karen and Foggy, normally so immaculate, dolled down in gym shoes and hoodies with their hair all ruined from exercise. He loves to see how thoroughly they remain themselves when taken out of their usual environment.

Karen doesn’t drop her focus. She stills radiates that hard-to-pin quality that always makes him think she’s cut from the sort of stuff that becomes diamonds. And as for Foggy, he’s lighthearted, keyed into the emotions of everyone around him. Meanwhile, Wilson simply relaxes. He loses the tension that he always carries with him whenever he’s going to be seen in public. 

It’s easy for Wilson to unwind when they go to the gym, especially when he and Bucky throw down—and Bucky’s not afraid of hurting Wilson in a fight now, not given what he knows about his pain tolerance and recovery time. Watching him dance around the ring with Matt is a lot more fun, but Bucky enjoys the chance to partake in a playful bout now and again. Each session with Wilson gives him a little more confidence for his upcoming match with Matt, whenever that ends up happening.

Wilson’s walking back to A. Tower with Bucky when he brings up the surgery for the cuff electrode. 

“Ooh, sounds like tricksy stuff. Will it look any different after?”

Bucky doesn’t know. He thinks maybe it ought to, that changing the internal workings should have some effect on the exterior, but probably not. Wilson looks disappointed, pointing out that if it’s going to give him sensation, there should be flashy lights or vibrations or _something_. Bucky finds the idea amusing. There are a lot of neat, quirky modifications he could trouble Tony for. Knowing Tony, he’d probably accept most, if not all, of them.

This is probably why Bucky really needs wholesome, sensible people like Sam and Karen in his life. He’s a practical guy most of the time, but he has his moments. And while lots of people might think Steve’s a paragon of respectability and good decision-making, Bucky’s never had any wool over his eyes where his reckless cannonball of a friend is concerned.

“Still just thinking of him as your friend, Buckles?” Wilson says as they’re approaching the entrance to Avengers Tower.

“Did I say all that stuff out loud?”

“You said, _my reckless cannonball friend_ , and then you sort of trailed off. For a second there, I thought you said, _my reckless **cannibal** friend._ ”

“Oh. I need to fix this goddamn mouth of mine,” Bucky mutters, pulling open the door and holding it for Wilson to walk through first.

“Yeahhh, or if you keep it how it is, we could _both_ be the Merc with the Mouth. Think about it. The parallels between us are uncanny enough as it is.”

Their shoes create neat little claps of sound in the empty lobby. Bucky presses the button to call the elevator, admiring the look of the building after dark. It’s all sleek lines and perfectly hewn furniture with facial recognition and heat signature detection failsafes at every door and window. Apparently Tony, or Pepper—most likely Pepper, actually—put a lot of thought into securing this place from unexpected guests, which reminds Bucky.

“Hey, J.A.R.V.I.S., you know my friend, right? Wade Wilson.”

The doors to the elevator swish open, bathing them in the warm glow from the soft halogen lights inside. Wilson peers inside, letting Bucky board first. J.A.R.V.I.S. types out a glib swatch of text on the panel.

_“Yes, Bucky. Mr. Wilson and I have met before.”_

“Really?”

Bucky glances up at Wilson, all but oblivious to the twinkling text. His gaze is pointed at the startling ceiling of the elevator. It’s reflective steel that almost bears the appearance of glass, stunning when the light bounces off of it.

“You’ve met J.A.R.V.I.S.?”

“Wha?” Wilson looks at Bucky then at the panel where Bucky’s pointing. “Hey, what’s the big idea, Jarvey? I thought I told you not to call me _Mr. Wilson_.”

“That’s how he is.” Bucky shrugs and gives a little head tilt to say, _Well, what can you do?_

_“My apologies. My Dope-Ass Fresh Prince.”_

Bucky barks a laugh and fumbles his phone out of his pocket to snap a picture. J.A.R.V.I.S. allows the text to linger so that Bucky can get a clear shot of it and then erases it. Bucky gleefully snaps the photo to Tony.

“In’t he usually more of a talker than this? Why’s he usin’ the LED screens instead of his voice?”

“It’s my fault. I’m kinda weird about talkin’ AIs. Just reminds me of…” He hates himself for pausing over Zola’s name. “Of before, where I was bein’ held.”

Wilson’s mouth makes an ‘O’ shape, but no sound comes out. Eventually, he settles for saying, “That’s so funny, that’s how I am about this one laundry detergent. Smells just like the gowns they put us in at Weapon X. I smell that stuff and it makes me gag for like a whole week. Even if I get a tiny whiff of it. That, and Jell-O cups.”

Bucky smiles a little even as Wilson makes a retching sound.

“Sooo, bleachy detergents, lime Jell-O, certain cigarette filters, certain _cigarettes_ when they’re lit…”

“The tar gets to you?” Bucky asks as they’re getting out of the elevator.

“Not so much. I just remember one of ‘em from the labs smoked, and my dad, well, it’s more how he put out his cigarettes than how he lit up, you know?”

“Oh.”

“One of the convenient things about bein’ covered head to toe in scar tissue,” Wilson says, too cheerily for Bucky to trust it. “You forget after a while which mark came from where.”

“I know where they came from,” Bucky mumbles, flatly contradicting him.

Wilson balks and leads the way into the training room where Wanda nearly broke the glass with her powers.

“Do not.”

“I do,” Bucky insists, nodding to a covered spot on Wilson’s back. “That one’s from a glock 43. It’s an exit wound. I can tell by the size. That means the shooter came from in front of you. They shot you right through the heart.”

“Okay, smarty pants. Good guess,” Wilson allows. “But between us reformed assassins, we could guess gun gauges all night and not really know _how_ they happened.”

“We’ll make a game of it then.”

Bucky brought Wilson here to ask if he’d have a problem being in attendance for his surgery, but this game seems more important somehow. He’s never going to be able to fix what they’ve experienced or what they’ve done and why, but talking about it feels like the right move. Talking about it in such a way that’s low stakes for both of them might actually be fun.

“If I can guess what gave you a scar, then you gotta tell me the story behind it.”

“All right, hot shot, and if you guess wrong?”

“Then you…don’t have to tell me how you got it?”

“Nope. Nuh-uh. If you guess wrong, and hoo, buddy, I’ve got a whole mess of scars you’re gonna get wrong, you gotta tell me how you got some of yours. Assuming you, uh, even have any visible ones.”

Bucky quickly catalogues a list of at least nine that should suffice. He nods, accepting the terms.

“Right! I need alcohol. Can we make this a drinking game?”

Searching for the booze is another mission on its own, but Banner catches him riffling through the pantry and points him in the right direction. Bucky recognizes the room as the one where Tony was defenestrated by a trickster god over a penis joke. He and Wilson decide to hole up there by that same window—a huge floor-to-ceiling sheet of spotless glass.

“I’m not gonna regret this, am I?” Banner asks, edging back toward the door to the hall.

“I probably won’t get drunk,” Bucky deadpans. “I mean, unless we go through his whole stash. I don’t know what it’d take, honestly. Wilson?”

“Nah, I get drunk. Doesn’t last long, but I can manage it.”

“Well, there you have it.”

“That…actually, I’m less worried now than I was.” Banner walks through the door and peers at Bucky before pushing it closed. “Be safe.”

“Sure, doc.”

“What’d you get anyway?” Wilson makes grabby hands after the bottle once Banner’s shut the door, leaving them in a dark room with more alcohol than two people should have unlimited access to. “Ah. This is Russian. Vodka?”

“What else?”

“Stolichnaya,” Wilson enunciates, squinting at the English spelling along the bottleneck. “All righty. All’s we need now is rules.”

“If I guess wrong, I drink and tell you a story of mine. If I guess right, you drink and tell me a story of yours. Fair?”

Wilson raises the empty shot glass and wags his eyebrows. “Sure thing, sarge.”

Bucky reminds him that he already guessed correctly on the glock 43, so Wilson dutifully downs a shot and tells a spirited tale about his early days out of the Weapon X program. He’d been searching for the leader of the operation and one of the many goons he’d dispatched on his climb up the ladder had ordered their bodyguard to shoot center-mass.

“I didn’t go down or anything. It was actually pretty cool.” Wilson belches. “The whole, ‘not-dying-from-mortal-wounds’ shtick was still brand new to me, so I of course thought I was the shit.”

“I’ll bet,” Bucky snorts, pouring another shot into the same glass Wilson used. He doesn’t see any sense in breaking out another one for himself. “Okay, next one? On your neck, that little…” Bucky taps at the pulse in his own neck. “The jagged scar that’s shaped like Somalia. Was it an icepick?”

“How in the actual—ugh, you competent little soldier, you.” Wilson downs another shot. “All right, so that one’s harder to explain. It was, uh, sort of my fault? I mean, it was a lot my fault. It involved Thanos. You know who that is?”

“No.”

“Oh-kay, without getting into the technical details, he’s basically a dick wad. One of the times we got into it, we happened to be on a spaceship and I wouldn’t quit talkin’ so he launched me—Ehhh, this was a different timeline, Buckles. Don’t freak out. Anyway, to make a confusing story _extra_ baffling, the icepick was my ticket out to see my lady, who we were tryna save at the time, both of us.”

Bucky blinks, raises the bottle to his lips, and gulps down a few swallows. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Blinks a few more times for good measure.

“You did it to yourself?”

“When you say it like that…hey, does this mean you’re gonna tell me one now? Since you took a drink.”

Bucky stares out the window, takes another swig from the bottle. His lips pull back from his teeth in a winced grunt.

“I’ll tell you two for that one, Jesus Christ.”

Wilson leans in, all curiosity. Bucky sets the bottle down roughly and bunches up the hem up of his shirt so that it gathers beneath his metal shoulder. He holds the tip of one finger to the ridge of a rib where there’s a wine-colored stain smeared into his skin, slightly puffy in the middle. It wraps around his side like a length of ribbon draped along his waist.

“Can you guess?”

Whistling, Wilson says, “Scalding water?”

“See how it’s a nice little line?”

He nods. “I do see that.”

Bucky nods, too. Takes another long drink. 

“Hey, gimme some of that.”

They end up not following the rules at all, and Bucky’s fine with it, actually. They get plenty buzzed without them. He learns that the starbursts in his palms and his eyelids are part of an all-over scar Wilson got when his body _melted_.

Wilson cackles thinking about it, gasping to say, “Oh, man, Cable. I miss that babely powerhouse.”

“Babely.”

“As they come. Had a metal arm just like you, actually. The left one, even. Looked more ‘borg than human sometimes, I swear. That eye more than anything. Yeah, Cable.” Wilson huffs a quiet laugh and drinks, the shot glass long abandoned. “Miss him. Shouldn’t, but I do.”

“Sounds like he was…impressive.”

“Man, he’d’ve loved to hear you say that. He was all about…” Wilson hiccups, looking away to mask the rough sound of it. “All about second chances, that guy. Had to be, to deal with me.”

“You’re not so bad, Wilson.” Bucky rolls his tongue around in his mouth, pondering. “You ever think it’s less their patience and more our willpower that gets us out? Out of the…places where we get stuck before they pull us to the surface? ‘Coz think about Mjölnir, right? Mjölnir, she—”

“She?”

“Yes, she. Mjölnir is a classy lady. But Mjölnir doesn’t move unless she wants to. Yeah, it takes the right person reaching out to her, but she decides whether to stay put or budge. Doesn’t matter if it’s Thor himself doing the lifting.”

“So what you’re saying is,” Wilson continues excitedly, lisping slightly and swaying, “is that we’re enchanted celestial war hammers?”

Bucky taps his thumb on the mouth of the bottle, morose in his contemplation, and abruptly giggles. He _giggles_.

“Is that what I’m saying?”

“My guy.” Wilson snorts. “My beautiful dude. We are sloshed.”

They are, Bucky realizes, noting the many drained vodka bottles surrounding them. He lines them up to take count, releasing his breath in a great whoosh at the ending number.

“How did we drink _five_ bottles of vodka? Wilson, what the fuck?”

Bucky’s grinning, but he has the weird displaced feeling that he shouldn’t be. Wilson shrugs expansively and also counts the bottles.

“Well, I drank this one.” Wilson hums, deliberating, and snatches a bottle of Russian Standard from their tinkly row. “You drank that one.” Peering closely at the label, he squawks a laugh and reads it aloud. “Tovaritch. That seems wrong somehow, for vodka to be called that.”

Their night slinks along in that fashion. They share more stories. Wilson sips from their sixth opened bottle from time to time, but Bucky leaves it alone, allowing what’s in his system to settle. Five fucking bottles between them, for God’s sake.

Wilson stays well and truly tipsy with no real sign of recovering. Bucky’s doing better, but he can’t walk straight without stumbling. He drags Wilson to the elevator after halfheartedly clearing their mess and walks them to Bucky’s room without really thinking. It’s better for them if they stay here and sleep it off. He doesn’t want to leave the tower inebriated and he doesn’t want to send Wilson out on his own either.

Bucky wakes, blessedly, with a tiny migraine and nothing else. He also wakes up with his head on Wilson’s shoulder, his flesh arm pressed up flat against his back.

“Well.”

“Huh?” Wilson yawns and scrubs at his eyes before turning to look behind him at Bucky. “Hey, tin man.”

“Hi.”

He stretches then gets more comfortable, burying his face in Bucky’s pillow. Bucky narrows his eyes at the back of Wilson’s head.

“You’re staying.”

“Well, if you insist.”

“I don’t—you stayed. You weren’t worried?”

“I was fantastically drunk. But nah, wasn’t worried.”

“Why not?” Bucky demands, too alert to be sleepy.

“Dude, you practically threw me in here and then fell asleep on my arm. And mine doesn’t come off, so. Ah, technically, yeah, I can take my arm off, but your room’s nice. Didn’t want to bleed all over it. Or you.”

Bucky stares at him. Wilson cracks one eye open to look at him again.

“You need me to clear out, man?”

Sighing, Bucky says, “No.”

“Then lie down. You’re harshin’ my hangover.”

Bucky tries to be alarmed at how easy and weirdly comfortable it is being close to Wilson like this, but it just makes too much sense to be in any way surprising. Wilson’s warm and the texture of his scars pressed up beneath Bucky’s hand through his shirt gives him a strange sense of peace.

He keeps up his regular routine after that, for the most part. Wanda and Pietro ambush his movie marathons, Wilson teaches him to bake cakes and muffins and all sorts of tasty treats, Thor spars with him, Banner shows him flashy science experiments that boggle Bucky’s brain for hours on end. Matt, Karen, and Foggy hit up the boxing gym with him every other night of the week if they’re not busy.

Steve and the others text him when they get a minute. He watches their snapchat stories and keeps up to date on the news reports of what they’re doing in Syria. It doesn’t look good, but they’re all overwhelmingly positive in their correspondence with him. They don’t really have much time in between working and cramming in sleep to talk, but they make a real effort for him—they all do.

In the meantime, Bucky tries to take part in one noteworthy activity a day. He wants to be able to tell Steve what he did while he was away; it would be too embarrassing if he had nothing to show for the time that he’s had to himself.

But today he makes a slight miscalculation. Not a _mistake_ , exactly, but…a misstep in judgment.

At sixty miles an hour, the air tastes sharp and roars in his ears like a canon going off. Bucky can’t believe he let Thor talk him into doing this.

This, being Mjölnir’s accursed flying function because Bucky apparently has just as much of a death wish as Steve does. Because clearly a well-established fear of heights is not enough for him to completely discount the idea of zipping around the training yard like a startled pinball attached to a magical hammer. Because by some wicked stretch of fate and comedic happenstance, Thor’s hundred-watt grin has the power to make Bucky do really fucking idiotic things.

He’s physically not of this earth. It’s not Bucky’s fault he has weaknesses.

Bucky’s screaming and wind-blind, and he has the distinct feeling that Mjölnir is amused at his total lack of finesse in the air. She’s harder to control up here—more unpredictable, even in spite of never once leaving his hand.

The twins are there to watch, and Dr. Banner, too. It’s only Wanda’s quick reflexes that keep him from crashing into one of the higher climbing walls on a particularly wild ride. It takes Bucky a few seconds to realize that she can’t stop him right away because he’s holding so tightly onto Mjölnir, and the moment he lets go, he jolts to a stop with his shoulder rammed up into the side of the wall and a red crackling mist engulfing his vision.

He can’t push himself away from the wall right away, but the concrete stops scraping his cheek after the first ten feet. Bucky’s feet hit the ground and he instantly crumples onto his back, exhilarated. Pietro gets to him first, though the others are running over to examine him as well. They try to tug him up to his feet, but Bucky waves them off. He’s not ready to be upright just yet.

Dr. Banner’s phone trills from his pocket while they’re all four of them crowded around the puddle that is Bucky Barnes. When he takes the call, he puts it on speakerphone.

“Hi Tony.”

 _“Dr. Banner.”_

Bucky cracks one eye open. That’s Tony’s mock-serious voice.

“How’s, uh, how’s Damascus treatin’ you guys?”

 _“We’re en route back to New York. Fewer explosions than there might’ve been. Should be home near dawn.”_ There’s a pause. _“How’re things at the Tower?”_

Haltingly, Banner says, “Things are good. Quiet. You know us, stayin’ outta trouble.”

_“Really?”_

Glancing abruptly from his phone to a camera perched like a gargoyle by the door to inside. A familiar wince pinches at the corners of his mouth. Bucky covers his face with both hands, just imagining what he must look like on the tower footage. He’s never actually figured out which cameras record sound in addition to video, but he’d bet anything that the reels Tony has of him frantically flying around the training yard come in HD picture with full audio.

Bucky closes his eyes and frowns at the music he hears coming from Thor’s pocket. It takes him a second to figure out what’s happening, but once he realizes the tinny pop song is coming from the exact pocket that Thor dropped Bucky’s phone into half an hour ago, he sits up like a shot and scrambles onto his knees. He’s still not steadied yet, so he wobbles and loses his balance on the first try.

But Thor just thinks Bucky’s trying to stand, so he crouches and gets his hands on Bucky’s shoulders to support him. Bucky fumbles at Thor’s pocket for his phone, hands clumsy for the half second that he can actually reach Thor’s pockets. In the next second, he’s on his feet on the wrong side.

_‘I know you’re always on that night shift, but I can’t stand these nights alone. And I don’t need no explanation ‘coz baby, you’re the boss at home. You don’t gotta go to work, work work—’_

“Jesus Christ, Thor, give me the damn thing.”

_‘You don’t gotta go to work, work, work, work, work, work, work. Let my body do the work, work, work…’_

_“Is that what I think it is?”_ Tony asks, sounding bewildered and delighted and _still on speakerphone_.

“It definitely isn’t!” Bucky yells, lunging after Thor’s pocket.

_“Tony, what?”_

Bucky freezes. That’s Steve. And now Tony’s got _them_ on speakerphone, judging by the faint echo.

Thor, finally understanding, says, “Now I see. Your phone is producing this music. My apologies, Bucky.”

_‘Let’s put it into motion. Ima give you a promotion.’_

Pietro chuckles and Banner stammers and Wanda covers her mouth with her hand. Thor digs through his pocket to produce the phone, smiling all the while. Bucky gloomily holds out his hand to receive it. There, smiling and handsome and unassuming, is Steve’s contact photo.

_‘We don’t need nobody. I just need your body. Nothing but sheets in between us, ain’t no gettin’ off early.’_

Bucky laughs a bit hysterically and thumbs the green phone icon, muttering under his breath, “Jesus wept.”

In his ear and from Banner’s phone, Steve says, _“Oh.”_

“That was bad, Tony,” Banner’s murmuring, toggling off the speakerphone and walking away from their group. “You know he likes his privacy.”

“Steve, I’m here.” Bucky covers his eyes with his right hand. His phone screeches a bit where it slides against his metal palm. “Christ, hi, you heard all that, didn’t you?”

Thor starts gesturing for Pietro and Wanda to walk with him back to the tower. They follow after him, both looking back at Bucky and waving when he lifts his hand to watch them go. Pietro mouths that it’s a good song just as Wanda’s carting him off. Bucky lies back down, defeated and pleased in equal measures. Steve’s on the phone with him, so he already feels a hundred times better than he has all week.

 _“I did. Can’t say I thought you’d like that kinda music,”_ Steve muses, sounding far less discombobulated than Bucky feels. He even laughs like he finds the whole thing charming. _“Guess you must miss me somethin’ awful, huh?”_

“Yeah, well, you’ve been gone three weeks. I think I’m allowed.”

And just like that, Steve’s gentle. _“I’m sorry, Buck.”_

“Don’t be sorry. I get it. The job’s the whole point.” He’s still grumbling from his botched flight and the embarrassing ringtone, but talking to Steve really does wonders for his mood, especially if he gets Steve laughing. “I think Wilson must’ve done it. Tryna be funny, the wise ass.”

 _“He succeeded,”_ Steve says with a small chuckle. _“I’ll give him that much.”_

“D’you see the surveillance footage or what? Why’d you call?”

_“No, not yet. Tony wants to make popcorn and show everyone, apparently. Sounds like Banner might be talking him out of it.”_

Bucky glances over at Banner, seen in profile standing utterly still except for the slow fluttering of his fingers at his side. It reminds Bucky of Matt and how much he misses Nelson & Murdock and Matt’s apartment and Josie’s bar. He’s never actually seen the inside of it, but he’s heard the stories and passed by it with Foggy, Matt, and Karen countless times, always talking about how they’d go in someday if Bucky felt like he could handle the noise and the crowd.

The steady fanning of Banner’s fingers reads more like an unconscious tic than like a side effect of frustration or impatience. And for what Bucky knows about Banner, he can’t imagine he’d be short with Tony even in a spirited argument about hilariously mortifying cctv footage.

“Hell, if he gets his way, just watch it. I have a feeling while everyone else’s laughin’ at me, you’ll be makin’ that face you make when you think I need rescuin’.”

Steve laughs, caught out. Bucky shrugs an unseen shoulder against the damp grass. It rained all morning, but it’s been hot and humid for most of the afternoon. He plans on taking a shower when he gets inside anyway, so he’s not bothered by how sticky and itchy the back of his neck and bare arm are starting to get.

“So Tony said you guys’d be home before dawn. That a promise or wishful thinking?”

 _“Promise,”_ Steve tells him, soft and careful like he knows Bucky’s putting all his faith into his answer. _“Tony ran the calculations forward and back. Nat checked his math, said it all squared up.”_

“Oh, if Natasha said, then sure, I believe it.”

_“She’ll be touched to know that’s how you feel.”_

“She knows,” Bucky says simply, easily, and gingerly sits up.

It’s not the kind of thing he could ever go back on, having such a great swell of trust in a person’s ability, their mind, their motivations. A part of his brain instinctually accepts that Natasha won’t deceive him, and the more they learn who the other has become in the present day, the more firmly Bucky stands by his instincts.

“Hey, do you know if Tony got the all-clear from Ramirez to do the cuff electrode surgery when you get back? I want to get it done.”

Steve’s voice trails away from the phone while he asks, and Bucky moves the phone to his right hand so he can examine his left. This prosthesis always startles him for how flashy it is when he first glimpses it, but then, he gets that same rush of confusion when he sees the replica of his old arm that’s been set up in the Smithsonian. It’s always a shock and he never gets used to it. He should probably have come to expect it by now, but his left hand never quite looks…well, it probably never will.

He hears Tony’s muffled reply in the background but can’t make out the exact words. It’s loud where they are and the static overpowers a lot of subtler sounds he’d be able to make out on a clear connection.

_“Tony says they’re ready when you are, Buck.”_

“Day after tomorrow?”

_“Ooh, a rest day in between surgery and a twelve-hour flight home from relocating Syrian refugees for nearly a month. Thanks, Barnes. That’s super neat of you.”_

“In a week then. A month. I’m not picky.”

There’s a sigh, some more static, then Tony hums.

_“Two weeks. I want to do it at the tower. Less risk of outside interference than in a public hospital.”_

Bucky has a faint and fleeting thought of Claire but pushes it away. She already told him once that she didn’t want to see him as a patient again. He doesn’t want to trouble her, not when they haven’t kept in touch since their correspondence while he was incarcerated.

“You’ll be there, right?” he asks, aiming the question at Steve.

_“If you want me to be.”_

“I wanna bring Wilson, too.”

Steve allows it. Tony doesn’t raise any objections. He’s sure they’ll draw up a list of rules for Wilson to adhere to when the day for surgery comes, but he’s content enough with their casual acceptance of his terms. Bucky doesn’t want to hang up, but he also doesn’t want to keep Steve on the phone for an hour when he’s got twelve more of travel ahead of him. Whatever time zone they’re currently in, Steve might be able to get in some sleep to help pass the time.

_“I’ll see you in the morning, all right?”_

“Sure. But look, um, if you get in after dark and I’m asleep, then just, just come in.”

Bucky imagines Steve’s breath catching, imagines his lip tucked up between his teeth. Imagines the slide of Steve’s throat as he swallows, and he shouldn’t even be putting this on the table right now because God, he doesn’t know how he’ll react if— _when_ —Steve takes him up on his offer. He hardly has any idea _what_ he’s offering outside of wanting to be close to Steve at the very first opportunity that he can be. 

That’s all he has to know about it, though. Doc Samson’s always saying Bucky can have new things in small doses, and he’s a far cry from how he was before, throwing elbows in the dark before fully waking up. Steve is quiet still on the other line, thinking, figuring.

“If you don’t want to, then I get it,” Bucky adds quickly, growing nervous. He makes himself smile, hoping it translates into his voice. “You’ll probably wanna sleep in your own bed for a day and a half once you’re back.”

_“No, I—I want, that. I can do that. You’re sure?”_

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s…it’s just sharing a bed, right? We’ve done it before. I know what to expect.”

_“Yeah?”_

“Well, you’re smaller in my memories.”

 _“…Oh.”_

Bucky strains his ears, replaying that single consonant in his mind over and over again, puzzling through it. He can’t pinpoint what it is exactly that he hears in Steve’s tone, but there’s something there, begging to be interpreted for all that Steve attempts to stifle it.

_“All right, Bucky. Don’t wait up, okay? It’ll be around four in the morning when we get in.”_

“Okay, I’ll see you, Steve.”

Bucky hangs up not understanding what happened but feeling vaguely unhappy about it. He goes inside on much sturdier legs and lies down in the theater room, remembering. It’s been such a bizarre journey getting to this place. He was a Brooklyn boy then a soldier then a P.O.W. then a fallen friend. He was a weapon and a victim and a killer. He was homeless, he was found, he was saved, and now he’s here.

Avengers Tower takes up its own chapter in the ongoing book of his life. The first few times he came here, it felt like an impossible fever dream. Like a beautiful place he might look in on from the outside but one that he’d never be a part of, not really. He has good and bad memories from various rooms and floors and training areas. So many of his relationships have grown here. Some of his close friends—Thor, Wanda, and Pietro—he met in this tower. 

He’s slowly getting over his fear of talking computers and is developing a more urgent fear of heights that, while distressing from the perspective of someone who’s in the running to become an Avenger one day, makes him feel like a real, warm-blooded human being. Bucky’s afraid. He’s afraid of falling from a great height and he’s afraid of losing control and he’s afraid of hurting the ones he loves.

Bucky loves.

He loves Karen and Wilson and Ellie and Matt and Steve and Foggy and Natasha—he loves every person who’s taken him in and helped him to unbend from the tight coil that years of torture taught him to adopt. Fear and love and yearning are emotions that Bucky _feels_. This revelation strikes him probably at least once a week lately, but it used to flood his senses a few times a day every day. Bucky used to look at people and immediately determine their odds as they compared to his. He used to look past faces to calculate the levels of danger that could be read in a person’s build, body language, and whether they were armed.

Nowadays, Bucky rarely even thinks about any of that. Well, he _does_. He can’t help but be aware in most settings, but dropping it away is an option now where it wasn’t for a long time. The clumsiness comes in when he can’t figure out how to lower his guard without letting it slip through his fingers altogether.

Like with Ellie and Karen. Or Matt. Sometimes with Wilson. And Steve.

Bucky plays the French film he watched with Steve a while back before Damascus and listens halfheartedly with his gaze pinned to the ceiling. French is a baffling language for him. It reminds him of the war, and when he goes back to that time, he can pick apart odd gaps in his memory. Just like the missing spots with Natasha after he finished training her, there are missing spots from the war, too. Missing stretches of time, disconnected false memories that he can tell were planted, and untethered sensations that come from someplace so deep inside him that his chest aches for searching after them.

The French film ends, and although it’s Bucky’s second time watching it, he still doesn’t really know what the story was meant to be. He has a clear enough grasp of French to comprehend the dialogue, but he’d been too distracted during both viewings to digest the plot.

Bucky dozes on the couch in the darkened theater room after the credits finish rolling. He wills time to hurry on up so that Steve will be home again. It’s while distractedly thumbing at the panels on his prosthetic arm that the thought strikes Bucky hard and fast—he’s been thinking of this place as home. Maybe he even called it home when he was on the phone with Steve.

First, he’s embarrassed. The casual vulnerability of claiming the tower as not just his residence but as a more intimate space, freaks him out, unnerves him. But at the same time, it really doesn’t.

When they’re not half the world away, there are people here surrounding him always, encouraging him, teaching him. Lying on the couch alone with the entire floor to himself doesn’t make him feel isolated or alone. It can’t.

He can remember the shape Steve makes sprawled out on the opposite end of the couch. He can remember the sight, splendid and amusing, of Clint and Natasha throwing popcorn at each other from increasingly competitive, impossible angles to catch the kernels in their mouths. He can remember the first night the twins wandered in and found him watching _Finding Nemo_ ; he remembers how Wanda looked ready to flee but stayed for Pietro’s hand in her own; how Pietro shyly asked if they could join him and how Bucky blurted out a flustered, ‘oh, sure,’ in response. He remembers how Wanda laughed and laughed at the well-meaning sharks halfway through the film.

The impressions of his friends are everywhere in this building. It becomes second nature to sit down for coffee with Banner late in the mornings and hear him wax stammeringly poetic about whatever project he’s working on at a given time. Thor takes to walking the training grounds with Bucky to tell him stories of Valhalla, or sometimes they watch the stars like they had that night when Bucky scaled the highest wall by using Mjölnir as a climbing rope.

He’s okay how things are. The world doesn’t stop spinning without Steve there to look at Bucky, smile at him, talk to him, tell him everything’s all right.

Bucky does miss him. He misses Steve’s nearness and their coltish affection. He misses Sam’s sturdiness and Natasha’s candor; he misses Clint’s earnest optimism; Tony’s humor. Bucky misses the lot of them. The tower is quiet in all the wrong ways with most of its occupants out.

Idly rubbing at the fine seams in the metal joint of his elbow, Bucky taps out the code Tony showed him for removing the prosthesis quickly and painlessly. The mechanical plates in his shoulder socket whir, hiss, then click. He palms the bicep, hefting the arm’s substantial weight as it’s ejected from the slot. It’s got an awkward balance to it, heavier on the topside while the fingers jut out like ungainly prongs at the bottom. His arm, his hand, his fingers.

He wonders if it’ll be different after the surgery. If removing the prosthetic will hurt or if he’ll feel it more than in just the edges of his shoulder and in whispers down his back. Bucky stays in the theater room another hour tracing curious fingers along the contours in his detached metal arm. When he finally gets up to go to his room, he carries the prosthetic like a book tucked up into his side.

Banner’s told him that sleeping without the arm might be a more comfortable option, but Bucky hasn’t gone to bed one-handed since prison. He’s not sure why it sounds like a good idea now. All he knows is that he wants to be safe and relaxed for when Steve comes back. 

_Unarmed_ , he thinks to himself, laughing at his own terrible pun.

Bucky’s floor has been deathly quiet for the past three weeks. He’s finally come to find it peaceful rather than upsetting, so it’s no trouble to head into his room and get ready for bed. The prosthetic arm finds a place on the bookshelf beside the Bucky Bear, looking incongruous only now for the two matching arms it’s sporting. Bucky dresses down into a tank top and some sweatpants then brushes his teeth in the bathroom, wondering if Wilson would be able to sew a chrome sleeve for the bear. 

He doesn’t actually remember falling asleep. His head hits the pillow and Matt’s blanket comes up under his chin, and that’s it. There aren’t any dreams or terrors or blurry sensations separating wakefulness from sleep. It’s just still, peaceful.

For a while, all he’s aware of is floating through unconsciousness. He’s warm. 

There’s a presence behind him, a change in the scent of the chilled air in his room. Bucky’s eyes blink open, languid with sleep. A deep breath makes his chest rise high and then sink low as he exhales. He turns onto his back, eyes falling shut before he can help it. Steve moves in the dark, shuffling indecisively at his bedside. Sounds that aren’t words tumble forth from Bucky’s lips.

If he didn’t expect Steve, maybe he wouldn’t know him so immediately, but he does expect him, so there’s no mistaking it. The vague shape he presents in the dark is known and welcome, though Bucky only looks for a second.

“Buck, did I wake you?”

Humming, Bucky turns so that he can face Steve. He says, “Get over here.”

Steve fidgets some more. Bucky can’t confirm as much with his eyes or really, with any of his senses because he promptly falls back asleep, but he can sense Steve’s hesitation in those moments before sleep reclaims him. It doesn’t bother him. He expected Steve to falter, to doubt whether Bucky really wants him here. It just so happens that the most efficient means he has of relating to Steve that he’s not distressed or unsure, is to drop his guard completely and drift off again into the void.

This time, he does dream. He dreams that he’s looking at a map with Steve in a tent—in _their_ tent, an irrational part of his brain tries to tell him. There are oil lamps on the table painting fragile shadows on smoked glass, balmy wood, crisp parchment. Steve’s pointing at the maps in Bucky’s dream and Bucky’s staring at his mouth and Bucky sees Steve catch Bucky staring at his mouth, and…

And then Bucky’s waking, slow and sweet, too warm and confused. A lock of someone else’s hair tickles at his upper lip, brushes the edge of his nose. Steve’s curled up against him, out for the count. His lips are parted; his face, calm.

 _I did it,_ Bucky crows in his head. _Goddamn it, I did it._

He made it through the night, and the morning. Waking up wasn’t an issue. Staying asleep wasn’t an issue.

If anything, Bucky slept more soundly than he has in at least a week. Determined not to wake Steve, Bucky sinks back into the mattress a little to let his body mimic sleep. But of course, that’s when he looks down and notices.

_Oh, good lord._

It’s not like he’s never woken up hard before. He just can’t remember the last time it happened around another person, so he doesn’t know what he’s meant to do about it. Escape seems like the only sensible thing, but Steve’s using Bucky’s chest as a pillow—and drooling on his shirt, besides. If Bucky gets up, he’ll wake him. It’s not even light out yet. He can probably go back to sleep and make like the whole thing didn’t happen.

He decides he likes that plan, so he implements it straight away. Sleep returns to him quickly what with Steve being so warm and cozy and wonderful. An erection in the morning is hardly anything to be scandalized over anyway. Putting it out of his mind is as easy as closing his eyes.

Except then Bucky’s dreaming again.

In this dream, an alcoholic haze clings to him that’s limned with fatigue, with sour dread. Steve’s not looking at him in this dream, and Bucky feels it. He feels how it hurts now, how it hurt then. He dreams that he tips back another drink he doesn’t need in hopes that it will lessen the ache. Dreams that it soothes him for the duration of the burn it sparks in the back of his throat.

Bucky’s not hard when he wakes up again. The calm is still there. But so is the lingering pain from his dream. He knows what it means. Has always known what it means.

Steve’s moved in his sleep. He has his chin tucked over Bucky’s shoulder, nose pressed into the pulse at Bucky’s neck. It’s hard to believe he could have dreamt about such a crushing distance when in reality, they’re closer than Bucky thought they ever could be. In spite of the obstacles and the hardships, this thing between them works. They’re strong together.

“I dreamt about Coney Island,” Steve whispers, soft and raspy with sleep and lips brushing so close to Bucky’s skin that he shivers.

Because he doesn’t want to talk about his second dream, Bucky tells him, “I dreamt I was starin’ at your mouth.”

Steve quivers with a soundless laugh, wrapping his arms tighter around Bucky’s middle. Bucky realizes then that the absence of his metal arm allows Steve a more generous angle to drape over his torso. Hot breath tickles in little puffs at his jaw.

“That was the whole dream?”

“It really was. And you know what? I enjoyed it.”

“You didn’t do more than look?”

Bucky snickers and brushes his hand over his own mouth. “I don’t know, maybe I was about to. Can’t remember.” He cranes his neck so he can see Steve’s face, stretching to kiss his temple on a whim. “How was Damascus?”

“Loud, quiet.” Steve sighs through his nose, fingers flexing restlessly at Bucky’s ribs. “Then loud again.”

“Did you save anyone?”

“Maybe. I want to believe that we did, but I guess time will tell. How were things here?”

“Good,” Bucky murmurs, remembering the trip with Wilson to Syracuse, the James Bond marathon with Karen and Foggy, and the late night trips with Matt to the gym. “I’ve been keeping busy.”

With a smile in his voice, Steve says, “That’s what I hear.”

“I’m…” Bucky swallows, almost choking on his breath. “I’m gonna go see Rebecca.”

“Oh, Bucky, that’s great. Do you know when?”

“I was going to wait for after the surgery. Now I want to go before. Don’t want to make her wait any longer than I already have, you know?”

“What made you change your mind?”

Bucky thinks about Ellie and how she doesn’t remember her mom, how it pains Wilson to speak of what happened to her. He thinks about Wilson never actually bringing Rebecca up on the day that they spent with Ellie but how Bucky would find himself thinking about her from time to time regardless. They have so little time left to be a family. A lot of it, he’s wasted; squandered all because he was too afraid to face her.

But now he’s seen Ellie with Wilson. Bucky should’ve known the first time he saw Steve looking at him. Rebecca would forgive him. She would love him; has always loved him no matter what.

Steve can’t know about Ellie yet. As much as Bucky wants to sit him down and talk his ear off about her for hours on end, he’s sworn against it. It’s such a shame, too, because Bucky’s positive Steve would adore her and have all his paternal instincts cranked up to eleven just like Bucky’s were from the first moment that he saw her. He’s sure Steve would be great with kids; that he’d be a good dad.

All in a rush, it comes back to Bucky that just a few short weeks ago, he was having ideas about being a dad _with_ Steve. Now Steve’s looking right at him like Bucky’s his whole world and asking what got Bucky to see how precious family is.

He stammers. Steve pushes up onto his elbows, concern etching its way onto his handsome face. Panicked, Bucky just says the first thing that pops into his head.

“You did.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, but it’s the only truth he can admit to and that has to make it enough. Steve’s giving him a _look_ , appearing so harmless with his gold-spun hair sticking up in tufts on one side of his head. Bucky arrives at the impulse to ruffle it with his hand but stops midway through the gesture. His shoulder twitches and that’s where he ends, and even as he’s staring at his stump, he’s confused about where his arm went. He has to look up at the bookshelf where he left it last night to reassure himself that he took it off, that no one made him do it.

Noticing his distraction, Steve follows his gaze to the shelf where his metal arm lies on display at the Bucky Bear’s feet. The Bucky Bear sits undisturbed with its lumpy head listing to one side.

“Tony thinks that’s gotta be the more comfortable option,” Steve observes, voice carefully neutral and soft. “Is it?”

Bucky ponders on the question, choosing to focus his attention there rather than pointing out the sudden change of topic. His torso feels about forty pounds lighter when he’s not saddled down with the prosthetic arm. He hasn’t adjusted to the shift yet, so he has a tendency to lean to the right without it. Matt thinks that maybe means that Bucky’s always overcompensating for how heavy the arm is when it’s on him.

Sleeping without it on is…interesting, to say the least. His body has a more compact feel to it that’s nice but unsettling at the same time. That’s not even touching on how vulnerable he is to attack in this state. It gives him the idea to start training one-handed, just in case the need arises someday. Natasha would probably oblige him. Hell, Bucky might even ask Matt or Wilson. He’s fought them before and seen them fight from an outsider’s perspective. It could be fun to spar with them, now that he’s getting better at keeping his cool during a fight.

Steve’s still watching him. Bucky clears his throat and shrugs with the shoulder Steve’s not lying on.

“It’s pretty cozy, yeah. Just different. Lighter.”

“Was that the first time you’ve slept without it?”

“Yeah. Wanted—uh.” His face goes warm. He blinks rapidly around it. “I thought it’d be safer. For when you came.”

“Oh, Bucky.”

Steve leans up and soothes him with his mouth brushing gently over Bucky’s lips. Just a soft series of tickling kisses that flutter but never sting or jolt in his belly. It’s nice. Bucky missed it.

And because he’s incapable of keeping down the liquid gold of his deepest truths anymore, he says, “I missed you.” Murmurs it into Steve’s mouth and his cheek until he’s crying with it, until he’s not speaking the words anymore so much as he is breathing his tears into Steve’s skin.

“I missed you, too, Bucky.”

Steve holds him, covers Bucky with his body like a blanket, like a shield, like a roof. Like Bucky’s small and precious, like he’s something to be protected, like he’s the hearth and the four walls of Steve’s home.

Maybe he is.

Maybe some things they share are new and fresh and because of the present passing moment, but some things could never be removed from the past. This embrace is one of them. It stretches forward and backward in time.

They stay in bed the whole morning and most of the afternoon. J.A.R.V.I.S. rings them at around one for verbal confirmation of life because apparently the others are concerned (read: placing bets as to what they’ve been doing for several hours). It takes them a minute to notice since J.A.R.V.I.S. hasn’t yet been given permission to speak around Bucky, but the high-pitched beeping is hard to ignore after a while.

“Did I really change your mind?” Steve asks him when they’re properly alone again, curled around each other in Bucky’s bed that he now knows he can share, and not just with Steve, not just in the way that they share it. “About going to see Rebecca?”

Bucky looks at him, all lit up a glossy gold with the sunlight streaming into the room. He looks right like that—like the part of him that’s perpetually warm has found a way to eke out of him in a tangible form. Steve holds Bucky like all he's wanted for a long time is a cool breeze to relieve the heat in his soul. Bucky holds him back like Steve is the first gust of warm air to the frost in his bones.

He leans in and tilts his head so he can press their lips together. Warm. They’re so warm together.

“Yeah, Steve, you did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “My Dope-Ass Fresh Prince” because everyone should see this panel  
> http://spiderfan9.tumblr.com/post/140929820734/does-deadpool-have-jarvis-while-tony-is-using


End file.
